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Can somebody explain the "won't eat vegetables" thing? The only place I've heard about this being in issue is in America.
by cpursley 5y ago
Can somebody explain the "won't eat vegetables" thing? The only place I've heard about this being in issue is in America.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoSugar/bread is easier. We solve this by having a tiered eating system that starts with some salad or veggies, if they don’t eat, they clearly aren’t deathly hungry; dessert is available at the end of the meal if they finish. Note this may require a family eating culture that includes salad et al. With every dinner, which is not the norm in America.
- cpursley 5y agoI wonder if it's also the preparation method. Steamed veggies are of course not appealing vs ones flash fried in a little oil/butter plus salt.
- amock 5y agoMy experience with little kids is that steamed vegetables are the most appealing, they just need to be offered before sweets. Things fried in grease or with salt added seem to be something that becomes much more appealing later.
- vlunkr 5y agoI think preparation is a big part. If you offer a kid pizza and some cold broccoli together then yeah, they'll skip the broccoli.
- mattlondon 5y agoGenerally speaking, added salt is something you need to avoid with young kids. Likewise for saturated fats. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/weaning-and-feeding/foods-to-avoid-giving-babies-and-young-children/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/weaning-and-feeding/foods...
- mdavis6890 5y agoRegarding salt, From the link, “babies” is different than kids. I doubt salt is going to hurt anyone older except in specific cases like heart disease or something. I don’t buy the saturated fats thing either, except to the extent that they are a source of calories. If you have links to some studies that indicate negative outcomes vs the same caloric intake from other sources I am willing to read them.
- mdavis6890 5y agoI figured out the flash fry thing just last year. Game changer, for me as well as the kids. So yummy. Be careful with that hot oil though! The most dangerous thing in the kitchen afaikt.
- gumby 5y agoSteamed is how I like them the best, FWIW.
- skrtskrt 5y agoyeah I didn't discover veggies actually being good until adulthood when I learned you can just throw a little oil and salt and roast them in the oven. My parents always steamed them to hell and put almost no salt on
- dugmartin 5y agoI was well into my 40s before I learned that cauliflower actually tastes amazing when roasted. My mom always boiled it and I swear it always smells like something died in the kitchen when she did that.
- jkepler 5y agoOr raw - my child still loves raw veggies: carrots, broccoli, sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumber.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hkt 5y agoThat is the method that is apparently common in France. I recommend this book: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/20/french-children-food-pamela-druckerman https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/20/french-childre...
- brongondwana 5y agoThe danger with this pattern is that it encourages overeating - stuff in the vegies so you get dessert as well, and wind up eating way more food than you need.
- mattlondon 5y agoMy kid (~2 years) prefers to eat food they like the taste of most. Turns out that they prefer the sweet tastes of biscuits and even bananas etc to broccoli and carrots. They'll whinge and whine about being hungry, so you offer them some peas or avocado or something and they will literally push it out of the way, look you straight in the eye, and tell you about how hungry they are (...but not hungry enough to eat the veggies in front of them!). Offer them crisps or biscuits or even just fruity-yoghurt and they'll scoff it down super-fast because presumably it tastes nicer. Can't blame them really.
- selimthegrim 5y agoSo do they not class carrots as sweet at all? Is this related to kids hating olives at all?
- NobodyNada 5y agoI hated carrots growing up. I definitely would not describe them as "sweet": they taste dry and sour, take a long time to chew, and the juice makes my throat hurt. Maybe my family just bought bad carrots, but they all seemed to like them. I don't know.
- hackerfromthefu 5y agoMost modern carrots are quite sweet, however the ratio of fibre to sugar prevents the rapid glycemic spike that triggers the sugar addiction.
- drcongo 5y agoI've never met a kid who hates olives!
- nicoburns 5y agoMy parents avoided this issue by just not offering me crisps biscuits etc almost ever (perhaps one on the weekend if I were lucky - certainly not every day). Within healthy food groups they would make an effort to provide foods I liked though.
- 5y ago
- cameldrv 5y agoI've heard some speculation that this can be related to breast vs. formula feeding. If the mom eats a lot of vegetables, some of the tastes will come out in the milk and get the baby accustomed to those tastes.
- mithr 5y agoThis is highly unlikely, similarly to claims that eating cruciferous vegetables will lead to gassy breast-fed babies. Breast milk isn't the distilled contents of the parent's stomach. In contrast, alcohol (for example) is a problem because it affects the parent's bloodstream, not because it fills their stomach.
- plasticchris 5y agoIt’s not entirely far fetched. Grandpa used to say that if the cows got into garlic it ruined the milk, some flavors carry over.
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoI live on a dairy. Yes, when our cows grazed on our cover crop which included radishes, it affected the flavor of the milk. And the color, too. We actually had some customers tell us later that they wouldn't have kept buying our milk due to the unpleasant flavor, except that they knew it was temporary.
- bgoated 5y agoI'll second this; my parents had milk goats while I was young, and their diet definitely affected the milk flavor. Garlic, onions, even some weeds would do it.
- InitialLastName 5y agoA) The tastes/smells of many fluids humans produce are noticeably affected by the foods they eat B) Many with experience with milk-generating livestock will cite that the feed has a meaningful effect on the flavor of the milk. Why would human breast milk be the exception to both of those premises?
- coldtea 5y agoIf everything is saturated with salt/sugar/artificial ehnahced flavors/refined everything/fried/etc with "instant hook"-overcranked-at-11 taste, and it's all targeting the lowest common denominator palette, good luck then trying to teach a person to appreciate tomoatoes, brocolli, asparagus, mushrooms, cheeses, and so on...
- stavros 5y agoThis is a very good summary of my culinary experience visiting the US. This is not to say that good restaurants don't exist, it's just that cheap/everyday restaurants had everything cranked up to 11. The Cheesecake Factory menu was basically butter and sugar in different ratios.
- coldtea 5y agoWith that kind of cuisine how would they ever appreciate the finer taste of splinanetero and arnisia ameletita?
- stavros 5y agoOh man, don't give me an appetite.
- jeegsy 5y agoI had to look those up. Wasnt disappointed. You can definitely keep the ameletita though
- coldtea 5y agoThe latter is a delicacy though too!
- Noumenon72 5y agoSplinantero so rare Google didn't even guess it from how you spelled it. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=AOaemvJ4hHeqy-5CfhCoFmDJ5eLYJzKHxQ:1641344532974&q=splinantero&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjCzt3utJn1AhW9kIkEHSD1Bc8QBSgAegQIARAx&biw=1695&bih=829&dpr=1.13 https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=AOa... Arnisia ameletita doesn't even have any non-Greek results at all. https://www.womenonly.gr/kreas/arthro/ameletita_aganaktismena_ala_pandespani-128947344/ https://www.womenonly.gr/kreas/arthro/ameletita_aganaktismen...
- reaperducer 5y agoCan somebody explain the "won't eat vegetables" thing? The only place I've heard about this being a problem is in America. And yet I've seen it on TV shows in both the U.K., and Australia.
- enaaem 5y agoI find that many western households don’t know how to cook vegetables. Often mushy and overcooked. I as an adult don’t enjoy eating that either.
- acdha 5y agoHistorically, there was a big food safety / “scientific nutrition” movement which was heavily influenced by the various food-safety issues around the turn of the previous century and also things like Great Depression / WWII-era concerns about malnourishment (my grandfather remembered all of the concerns that American teenagers hadn't been fed enough to be able to go toe to toe with the Germans). This lead to a lot of truly regrettable food — when my grandmother did home economics classes the focus was always on things like having enough calories for manual laborers on a budget, cooking thoroughly to avoid the chance of disease, etc. which really emphasized meat and carbs, and techniques like pressure cooking (which allowed you to eat cheaper cuts of meat). Enjoying your food was not a priority. Her children were quite happy when she got into California cuisine back when that was new.
- Symbiote 5y agoAre you including the cultures with a reputation for the best food in your "western" generalization? France, Spain, Italy, Greece and so on.
- enaaem 5y agoOh yeah, they have great food. The more northern parts not so.
- martopix 5y agoYou can't really talk about "western" when it comes to food.
- na85 5y agoHonestly I think it's just cultural. Parents inadvertently pass it on, or the kids get it from their peers. My daughter ate olives, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, cabbage, whatever really, from age 2 to 3. Now she's older and there's a bit of "asserting my independence" thing but she still loves Brussels sprouts.
- jessaustin 5y agoYes, pickiness is definitely passed on. The only children I know who insist on ridiculous "meals" of mac-n-cheese and chicken nuggets have at least one parent who also has no taste.
- habeebtc 5y agoI am not a naturally picky eater. It has really helped in my world travels. The one thing I cannot deal with is Beets. Which is the only food my father hated.
- acdha 5y agoIt's a combination of several factors: American kids foods tend to be heavily processed and run to sweet, which will set the baseline if you let it, and there's this widespread belief that children won't eat grownup food so you should offer something else. We only offer what we're eating and, unsurprisingly, he has learned that as normal. That doesn't mean he eats everything — bitter flavors really are a learned taste — but he'll eat enough of it to get proper nutrition and understands that rejecting dinner means getting a second pass later rather than something else. We're also not monsters so there's always some high-probability staple in the meal so it might be that e.g. he eats the fish and sweet potatoes/kale chips but not the squash, which is acceptable. There are also some amusing outcomes: I haven't had asparagus tips in a year or two because he eats those happily but not the base.
- quartesixte 5y ago> children won't eat grownup food so you should offer something else. Having grown up in an immigrant household where the children’s plate is just a smaller version of the adult plate, is this a thing in American households? The kids eat an entirely separate meal-course from the adults? I know baby food is processed but once a kid gets teeth, they’re just given what the adults eat. My grandmother would have banish from the table if I had ever even dared to ask to eat something separate.
- acdha 5y agoVery much yes: like you'll have a meal with normal food and someone will make a batch of Kraft mac-and-cheese without even offering them what everyone else is eating. I can understand the appeal of not fighting about it but that problem only gets worse the longer it runs.
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoSpeaking for myself (American/Midwest), I've never seen nor experienced children getting a separate menu than the adults. Well, except for eating out, I guess. And even then an adult sharing with a child is not that rare.
- skrtskrt 5y agoI think if Korean kids can love kimchi, Italian kids can love eggplant, and Mexican kids can love nopales you must be able to condition kids to like anything.
- teh_klev 5y agoThis is also known as the "Salad Dodger" bug. Many users in Scotland have been less than successful at getting a patch for this issue. Something to do with territorial licensing and the Pies and Bridies patent.
- moron4hire 5y agoMost people are shitty cooks.