More creative ways to encourage kids to try new foods + giveaway

Edited to add: the winners of the Vegie Smugglers giveaway are Mandy and Vicki and we look forward to trying their recipes of  Zucchini fritters and pizza pasta respectively! Thanks for all the great suggestions everyone – deb xx

 

 

Last month I shared part one of this post with the first four creative ways to encourage kids to try new foods. I hope some of you tried out one or two of the ideas and had some success. We have made some progress in the last month with my orally sensitive fussy eater adding scrambled eggs to her repertoire and trying many foods (including requesting the purchase of watermelon today to try again). My slightly less fussy (but still a challenge) child added bananas and loved my Massaman curry – both her first curry and her first acceptance of diced beef in her world of chicken and sausages.

The previously shared creative food ideas included:

1. Blind taste test
2. What you cook you try
3. Be a food reviewer (with printable food review log)
4. Mystery box shopper

Four more creative food ideas to try with your kids

5. Jr. Masterchef food competitions

If your kids have seen any of the Masterchef or Junior Masterchef shows they might get excited about having your own family competition. Depending on the ages of your kids you could pair up kids and adults or kids who are comfortable enough in the kitchen can go solo. This would be a great activity for an extended family dinner where grandparents or cousins could get involved as the judges or simply invite another family to join you. Decide what type of dishes are being cooked or select a “core ingredient” that must be used by everyone and then judge the final dishes. You can be creative and make this your own.

6. One food, many ways

Select one food item (ie a particular vegetable or a protein source) and come up with a list of as many ways you can prepare it and then set about trying them all. Think raw, cooked, different recipes, different sauces, different ways you can buy it (ie corn on the cob, baby corn, pop corn, corn meal, etc).

7. Eat your alphabet

Create a list from A to Z and decide on one food to try for each letter. You can try them in alphabetical order or simply choose things as you feel the mood strike you or something is in season and available. They can be single food items like strawberries or dishes like lasagne. If you need some help getting started my girls came up with their own list and I have included a copy for you along with a blank form for your children to fill in with their own Eat your alphabet chosen foods.

 

8. Around the world eating adventure

We may not be able to go on a trip around the world right now but we can be armchair travellers who extend the learning into the kitchen. Make a list of places you are curious about or wish you could travel to. Create theme nights by reading about the places, selecting recipes to cook, perhaps decorating your dining area or dressing in costumes or the country’s colours. You could even make a passport out of a small notebook or folded paper. Note the countries as headings and list any dishes tried. You can get a cool stamp or sticker that gets put in the passport whenever a dish is tried.

Many people are put off foreign foods with fussy kids thinking they will be too challenging, but remember that there are kids in every culture and you can use the internet these days to find flavours that might suit your child. If they are not keen on spices they may still enjoy trying milder foods or dishes that expand on flavours or ingredients they might already know. If you are not comfortable with cooking a particular culture’s food see if you can find a restaurant with a buffet or inexpensive lunch menu and you can create your own tasting.

 

I hope one of these 8 ideas will help you. Another way I have found success introducing more foods into my fussy eaters is by incorporating them into textures they already love (for us that is mostly muffins, breads and pancakes). I have several books and found many recipes online that offer great ideas.

Today I have a giveaway from Wendy Blume at Vegie Smugglers . Wendy has written two cookbooks to help boost your kids nutrition in kid-friendly (yet quite sophisticated at times) recipes. She also produces a great lunchbox planner each term to help with filling kids up with healthy and delicious food during the school day. I have 2 copies to give away of The Complete Vegie Smugglers lunchbox planner which is described as follows:

“Find inspiration for all of the 200 lunchboxes you will pack this year!

• Includes all 4 school terms.

• This complete planner covers the entire school year with…
- 60 seasonal recipes
- 40 menu plans
- Lunchbox tips and extra ideas for dinners too.

• 92 page interactive PDF document.”

Giveaway details:

• To enter to win 1 copy of the lunchbox planner leave a comment and share your most loved (by your kids) savoury recipe – can be a link to a recipe / blog post or written out. This way everyone reading can get some new recipes to try with their kids, be it in lunchboxes or meals at home.
• The 2 winners will be selected by my 2 kids who will each pick the best sounding recipe they want to try. [There you get a bonus idea - you can search for recipes on a site or blog and let the kids decide from the pool of recipes available. Once selected they must try the dish they pick!]
• Retail price $14.95 each
• Giveaway open worldwide since it is a digital product
• Giveaway open from Thursday 28 June to Thursday 5 July (6pm Brisbane local time)
• Winner will be drawn and notified within 48 hours and will then have 48 hours to confirm prize. If no reply email is received a new winner will be drawn and notified.

I cannot wait to see what recipes you share. I hope this pool of recipes helps you further with feeding your kids great meals. I often tell myself they won’t be fussy forever (and if they are still fussy at 25 years old it certainly won’t be up to me to feed them at that stage).

 

Find your simple,

Deb
linking up this giveaway with a great bunch of additional giveaways

Hosted by Three Lil Princesses

Tagged as: beyond fussy eaters