I am glad you found my blog–and I am really excited to hear about baby food in other countries–how neat!

You know, baby food here in the US just used to be pureed whatever Mom and Dad were eating, too. But there is a lot of fuss and control over which foods to introduce in which order when and how here in the US, which I think is part of what drives the idea that babies must have bland food all pureed into separate flavors.

Very odd.

And yeah–babies almost always spit stuff out the first time! (Morganna was an exception–there were lots of foods she took to right away, but then, she is my kid….)

And yeah, when she was with me growing up, I didn’t cater to her with kids’ foods. At my home, she ate real food. Now, the lamb chops might have been called dinosaur cutlets–but she still ate them. And eventually, she would confront me with, “It isn’t really dinosaur, is it?”

At which time, after she had eaten it and played the game, I would fess up and tell her it was lamb. She’d consider and say, “Lamb tastes good.”

This topic really hits home for our family. I don’t believe in “kids foods” and we don’t serve them to our kids. This morning I made fried rice with tomato, bok choy, sausage, egg and lots of garlic and packed that for the kids’ lunch. The whole idea of “kid food” is prepostorous and a fine example of marketing. Both of my kids are good eaters–the younger one is less fond of veggies but she mostly understands that to be a healthy girl and grow strong, she has to eat all sorts of things, even the ones that aren’t her favorites.

But the wacky US attitude towards kids and food goes further back than the stuff for school lunches. I used to tour the baby food aisles of grocery stores in Europe and was just fascinated by what was there. In the US, the pre-packaged baby food is all fruit and some veggies like peas or carrots [both sweet] and the occassional meat. Oh and those faux pasta things.

In Sweden or in France, the food was completely different. For example, in France you can get baby artichokes [pureed] or beef [that fancy french breed] with spring veggies [like cauliflower and spinach]. In Sweden the baby food is salmon and dill sauce with potatoes. In essence, just pureed grown-up food.

How on earth can people expect their kids to like different things if they don’t let them/encourage them to try them? And where did we get the idea that offering something once to a two year old meant something? I have heard fellow parents declare that darling johny doesn’t like something because they gave it to him once and he spit it out…as if a small child doesn’t ALWAYS spit out whatever new thing you put in their mouth?

But, what I do mind is the idea that you shouldn’t keep trying to get kids to taste other foods, and the weird idea in the US today that there is an entire category of foods that are considered to be “kids’ food.”

Such a thing did not exist until food marketers invented it, and on the whole the stuff that lives in that category is not nutritive, highly processed crap.

I don’t eat that stuff, so why should my kid?

For the record–I also am not sure that forcing kids to eat foods is a good idea, either. Encouraging, cajoling and rationalizing a kid into eating something is one thing–forcing them to finish something or eat it when it is obviously not to their taste is another.

I had enough canned peas and overcooked broccoli forced on me in childhood to know that I can’t do that to another human being, I don’t care how little he or she is. I remember how frustrating and humilitating it was to be forced to sit and look at a cold plate of food until I ate it, that I wouldn’t do that to a kid.

(Mom figured out later on that I would eat both peas and broccoli raw, and so would leave some uncooked–if we were having fresh peas–so that I would eat them that way. The same with turnips. Mild concessions to kids tastes like that are fine–and I think are a great compromise, and unlike some folks, I think a lot of veggies that kids won’t eat cooked, they will eat raw–so that isn’t a problem. She just never made an entire separate meal for me, nor would she….and I don’t blame her.

It looks like a struck a chord here–and I appreciate everyone’s input! Thanks for posting such insightful comments, folks!

I can buy the “don’t impose your tastes on your kid, because they may not be having the same taste experience you are having.” It’s definitely true in our family. My oldest son used to be a very adventurous eater – such as sharing spicy dishes from an Indian food lunch buffet. But at one point his tastes radically changed, and things previously liked were rejected. For example, he used to eat tomato-based pasta sauces but then he stopped. A few years later he started again – and his tastes have been gradually expanding. He’s also very sensitive to smells, and is a taster of articial sweeteners (as am I). He’ll eat sweet apples, but not tart ones. (But yet he loves olives, so figure.) My middle son has always been much more adventurous, while the youngest is the most adventurous of all (but also has the biggest sweet tooh!).

We keep offering healthy choices (and allow some not-so-healthy ones…), and encourage them to try again (“have you tried it recently? tastes change as you get older!”), but never force anything. In fact, we say something along the lines of “everybody likes different things!” A ’2 bite rule’ – where you have to eat 2 bites of everything served at a meal – would not fly (especially not with my eldest). At that’s what I think they might be getting at – those people who try to force their children to eat things just because it’s good for them, or just because the parents like it. At some point, kids develop their own taste preferences, and we should respect that – while also reminding them that tastes change, and encouraging them to broaden their horizons at times.

He’s a wonderful eater.

Our daycare provider often looks at the food we bring with confusion. A spicy (not heat spicy) rice dish with plain yogurt, dhal with spinach, plain yogurt with dill and garlic and all sorts of food that we eat at home that she obviously isn’t familiar with.

I hope he continues on this path, I won’t freak out if he has fast food – he has had french toasts sticks once while we stopped of Burger King while waiting for some work that was being done on my vehicle. But I am just thankful that thus far, he’s loved everything that has been put before him.