We Shouldn't Push Kids to Eat Foods They Don't Like

No, Not Even Just a Little Taste, Not Even a Single Bite

How’s that for a provocative title?

Last week, I wrote about the Eggplant Principle, which helps us listen to our inner voice and do what is right for us—to resist cultural pressures to be cool or to conform, to question spurious claims about health and virtue, and to reject protests that “we have always done it this way.” This week, I’d like to argue that when we push kids to eat foods they dislike, we fall afoul of the Eggplant Principle: conflicts over food aren’t enjoyable or easy, and they are bad for us and our families.

But first, a story from my husband’s family. When she was a little girl, my husband’s aunt, Ruthsue, despised peas. But she was a good, obedient girl, and she knew that however disgusted she was, she had to force the peas down. One night at a family dinner, when presented with a heap of peas, she ate them right away in order to get the unpleasant part of her dinner over with. Her grandma saw how quickly Ruthsue ate the peas and thought, “My goodness! This little girl likes peas!” and promptly heaped another pile on Ruthsue’s plate. Ruthsue gulped those down too—and her grandma heaped on yet another pile. At which point Ruthsue burst into tears.

I imagine that pile of peas looking like this.

On the one hand, this is a pretty funny story. But on the other hand, in most circumstances we don’t advocate childrearing practices that cause our kids to cry. So why this exception? Why do we persist in making kids try foods that gross them out? Well, I can think of a number of reasons.

1. We want our kids to enjoy a variety of healthy foods; we admire adventurous eaters and feel pity at best and contempt at worst for picky eaters. Put bluntly, picky eaters aren’t cool.

2. In addition, everyone—from pediatricians, to parenting magazines and books, to the health sections of newspapers, to our friends and relatives—tells us it’s good for kids if we make them taste a variety of foods. The conventional wisdom is that kids need to try a food ten (or fifteen, or twenty) times before they might willingly eat it.

3. Finally, we have always done it this way. Most families require kids to at least taste undesirable foods.

I agree with the goal of helping kids to enjoy a variety of healthy foods, but I would argue that making kids eat foods that disgust them won’t get us there. There is a better way: Teach kids to cook, stock a variety of healthy foods, and expect kids to participate in family dinners, but then let them eat—or not eat—whatever they like without censure or comment.

My Mom’s Approach

My vehemence may have tipped you off that I was a picky eater as a kid. Here is how my mom handled my pickiness: when I was very little, she cooked foods that I liked (including, on a few memorable occasions, hamburgers for breakfast) and never, ever, pushed me to try a food if I didn’t want to, even at other people’s houses. For example, when I was about eight, family friends invited us for dinner, and the only food on offer was cabbage soup. At the time I was reading a lot of Frances Hodgson Burnett, and I viewed cabbage soup as the kind of wretched fare that Miss Minchin would serve poor little Sara Crewe in her garret room. I refused to eat the soup and had a piece of bread instead, and my mom didn’t let anyone give me a hard time about it. I was a bit hungry but otherwise fine, and the hostess may have learned not to serve little kids cabbage soup and bread next time.

Starting when I was in early elementary school, my mom taught me to cook some basic dishes and to assemble my own meals out of what we had in the kitchen. I was welcome to eat what the rest of the family was having, but if I didn’t want to, I could make something for myself. My mom never bought junk food or snacks, so it was easy for me to put together a healthy if limited diet. I subsisted for years on macaroni and cheese, homemade yogurt, eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, orange juice, and the occasional cheeseburger. You may have noticed that while vegetables don’t appear on this list, the foods I ate (plus the multivitamin I took) actually covered my nutritional needs pretty well. When we allow kids to choose their own food, they won’t starve themselves but will in fact put together a reasonably nutritious diet on their own.¹ In my case, my limited diet didn’t exactly stunt my growth: I’m 5’10” (178cm), have always been a healthy weight, used to run half marathons, and now hike up mountains for a hobby.

I eventually broadened my diet and will now eat pretty much anything,² so long as it’s vegetarian. But I wasn’t motivated to change by adults’ pushing unwelcome foods at me; I only started eating pizza, vegetables, and other delightful dishes when I got to high school and didn’t want to seem weird. My trajectory accords with the research of the psychologist Judith Harris, who argues in her book The Nurture Assumption that peer pressure has more influence than pressure from adults on how kids turn out.

The Advantages of My Mom’s Approach

The most obvious advantage to my mom’s approach is that it removed conflict from our family dinners. Instead of feeling grossed-out, rebellious, or guilty about food, I simply enjoyed it. (I suspect that my parents also appreciated not having to supervise or monitor what I ate—it’s more fun to just have a conversation with your kids instead of spending dinner prompting them to eat their vegetables.) I am grateful that I learned to cook and to be self-sufficient in the kitchen from an early age, a skill that has been useful throughout my life. My mom freed me to enjoy food without any hidden agenda: for me food was nourishment, pleasure, self-expression—both cooking and eating—and no one else’s business.

This last point—that what I ate was no one else’s business—led to an important later benefit. When I was a seventeen-year-old college freshman, I briefly dated a guy who wanted to control what I ate so that I wouldn’t get “too fat.”³ Readers, he had no power over me whatsoever. In fact, I found it baffling and even amusing that he had the audacity to suggest it. I laughed at him when he said he should take charge of my diet—which was not the reaction he was expecting—and we broke up soon after. That’s right: I am saying that if you free your kids to take responsibility for their own eating, you might be empowering them to ward off abusive boyfriends in the future. I think that’s an advantage we can all get behind!

Yet Another Way of Looking at It

Still not convinced? Let’s try this thought experiment. I love spiders. Experts agree that it’s good for people to learn about the variety of marvelous creatures that share our world. So I’ve decided that anyone who comes to my house for dinner must let my buddy Charlotte crawl over them:

An Orb Weaver Spider. Isn’t she beautiful?

Or imagine this: I’m serving insects for dinner, and I expect everyone to at least take a taste.⁴ After all, insects are a healthy and environmentally-friendly food enjoyed by millions of people around the world. I’m just trying to encourage my guests to be adventurous eaters! Now, how do you feel about having dinner with me? Do you look forward to it with great anticipation, or do you dread it? Do you feel like I am a good friend to pressure you to eat bugs?

Kids have keener taste buds than we do, which can cause them to reject foods we adults enjoy. As just one example, cruciferous vegetables, like the aforementioned cabbage in that ill-fated soup, emit a sewage-like odor, especially when they’re overcooked. Adults either don’t perceive the smell or are able to ignore it, but the smell can be a deal-breaker for kids.

Pity the poor broccoli, a cruciferous vegetable that is too often left on the plate.

Kids are also sensitive to textures that adults more easily ignore (as a kid I had huge problems with the mealy textures of peas and mashed potatoes, and I couldn’t bear tough, gristly meat, for example). Finally, some of us carry a gene that makes us more sensitive to bitter flavors. So when kids refuse a food, even foods that we ourselves love and want to share with them, they’re probably not doing it to spite us—they may well be coping with real disgust.

To repeat, we all have the same goal—for our kids to enjoy a variety of healthy foods. But forcing kids to eat foods that disgust them as a condition of participating in family dinners is no different for them than being forced to eat bugs would be for us. Even criticizing kids’ choices or making little comments about their pickiness puts pressure on them and spoils the mood we want for family dinners. Besides, it doesn’t work anyway. My mom’s approach, by contrast, promotes independence, encourages cooking, and sets kids on the path of lifelong healthy eating. It’s worth a try! And if your kids are like me, they will be grateful to you for the rest of their lives, and might even thank you publicly one day in an essay like this one. Thanks, Mom! I love you!

How about you, readers? Were you a picky eater, or is your child? Have you found effective ways to cope with pickiness and make mealtimes more peaceful and enjoyable? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

The Tidbit

I present this recipe because it is easy, delicious, and nutritious. In fact, the ingredients that make the kale delicious—the oil and lemon juice—also make the vitamins in the kale more available to our bodies; the more delicious, the more nutritious! As a bonus, this dish also looks amusingly like the green glop in the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.

The one tip that seems to work for getting kids to try strange new foods is to put the food on the table with no other comment. If children see people enjoying the food, they might get curious and give it a try. Next time a picky eater is coming to dinner, put this dish on the table, say nothing about it, and see what happens. Or, you could always use Calvin’s mom’s strategy and say that it’s monkey brains.

Calvin’s Green Glop

About 2 pounds of kale, in one of those big prewashed and chopped bags if possible

1/3c olive oil

1 garlic clove, very finely minced with 1tsp salt

red pepper flakes, freshly ground black pepper, and dried oregano to taste

juice of one lemon

1. If your kale isn’t already washed and chopped, do so, and be sure to remove all the big stems and tougher veins.

2. In a huge cauldron of boiling, salted water, boil the heck out of the kale for at least ten minutes, stirring occasionally to submerge all the kale. The kale will shrink way down. Drain thoroughly.

3. In a large skillet on medium heat, saute the garlic in the oil for a minute. Don’t let the garlic brown. Add in the seasonings.

4. Dump in the kale, toss throughly to coat, and pour the lemon juice over and stir. Taste and adjust the seasonings if necessary. (I always add more salt at this point.)

5. Either eat straight from the pan (my approach) or, if you have better impulse control than I do, put in a big bowl on the table for everyone—possibly even a picky kid—to devour.

1. There are a few important exceptions to this point. Kids on the autism spectrum may need nutritional support, especially if they reject all but one or two foods. Kids whose families have turned food into a power struggle may refuse to eat as a way of getting back at their parents. Kids who have access to lots of junk food elsewhere may not feel hungry enough to choose healthy foods at home. Finally, kids with eating disorders need professional help to deal with those serious illnesses.

2. Yes, even eggplant, especially if someone else makes it.

3. This was only a few years after a growth spurt during which I grew nine inches in nine months, and I was still quite underweight. Apparently there is no weight so low that some people won’t tell you that you need to get skinnier.

4. I will spare you a photo, but be assured that there are thousands of horrifying pictures out there of foods with bits of insects poking out of or crawling around in them.