Picky Eating and Counter Food
When my kids were younger and I’d be scurrying around the kitchen trying to prepare meals, I’d always notice little hands reaching up to grab some veggies I was prepping, or little bodies climbing on the kitchen island to help me mix, pour, measure and taste. And even though cooking with kids makes meal prep 1,000% more time consuming (the mess!!) it was always so worth it.
What I found was that my kids were excited to taste the bell pepper I was chopping or the pinch of herbs I was mixing in. More excited than when those same foods were presented as part of a meal later on. And even when I’d wince at them chomping on a piece of raw onion or once, a knob of fresh ginger root, I embraced the opportunity to let them try new foods in this environment that was outside of regular mealtime, and happening right at the kitchen counter. Combatting picky eating doesn’t always need to happen at the dinner table. These “counter food moments,” as I called them, became key in getting my kids to try new foods that they might otherwise refuse at the dinner table. After all, a bright yellow bell pepper looks different once it’s stir fried into a brown teriyaki sauce, and fresh herbs might be undetectable to a toddler when they’re cooked in a tomato sauce.
Letting my kids stick their (hopefully clean) little fingers in the food while I was prepping at the counter gave them a no-pressure opportunity to taste things. Did it mean they then gobbled that food 20 min later when it was presented on their plate for dinner? No! Oftentimes not. But I didn’t sweat it. I knew they benefited from tasting the foods at their own readiness, and benefited from it being exposed to them in a new and different form shortly after as part of the meal. Exposure to different food counts when it comes to raising lifelong healthy eaters, so don’t get discouraged if your little ones happily gobble up “counter food” that they then refuse to eat moments later in a meal. Embrace these opportunities outside of the dinner table to allow your child to explore different foods.