Performative vegetables: veggies you pack in your kids lunch even though you know they won't eat them
I may have been packing lunches instead of showering, when I thought of this.
It's not performative. Research shows that kids can need 8-10 or more exposures to a new food before they're willing to accept it. It's important to keep offering foods even if they've refused it before.
I've personally seen this effect with my 2 year old son. Had absolutely no interest in noodles of any kind for a long time, yet we kept offering them, and one day he decided to try them and loved them. In fact, most new foods he eats are a similar story.
What works incredibly well with my 2 year old is eating them yourself and not care that he doesn’t like them.
Offer, accept the rejection, continue on your own, compliment the cook. Offer again and again in the meantime, not force, compliment the food again, keep eating. He usually wants to figure out what the hype is about and try a bite. Often scarfs the rest of the plate. Happened again with shrimps yesterday, first time he saw them. (Admittedly, he is a food-wise easy kid)
Yep, that's exactly what we do, and it tends to work. Can take a bit for some foods and sometimes he's just really into just one thing right now, but overall it's much better than trying to force feed him broccoli or whatever.
When I was a kid I lived in the Caribbean where all the kids ate their veggies.
Deep fried.
You can jerk your meat whenever you want there and no one bats an eye.
So funny I read this post right after my 3yo dishes l ate all her broccoli, her brothers broccoli, and seconds on... broccoli. Didn't finish her rice, though.
I think she might actually like fruits and veggies?
That said, I think a good trick is to style the performative foods as Japanese bento style because kids are kinda easily swayed by look and feel of food, so if it's cute or cool they are more likely to eat it. We're planning on doing that anyway, mostly cause my wife was raised in Japan where that was common.
Another thing to keep in mind is parents are often the role models, so liking or disliking things will matter. If you hate fruits and veggies, they'll notice.
I think she might actually like fruits and veggies?
IT'S A TRAP
THEY'RE LURING YOU INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY
AFTER A MONTH THE VEGGIES HIT THE FLOOR
More seriously, you have a great take on it and I genuinely hope it lasts! My kids' tastes seem to drastically shift over time. For a week one will eat nothing but carrots and quinoi, then (once you've amply stocked up on both) they won't touch them. But YMMV.
Fruits are generally easier. My youngest would devour an entire cantaloupe in one sitting if we let him.
Hahaha, OK, dammit this is a shower thought
Can't have teachers label you as a bad parent for not feeding your kids healthy snacks like fruits and veggies.
Everyone judges parents so hard.
We did this 'baby led weening' stuff and, for a while, the sprogs would reach for the broccoli and other veggies. However, as soon as they were exposed to chicken dippers by the grand parents, all bets were off. To be fair, it wasn't just them - society as a whole is not geared to providing nutritional meals to youngsters. We, of course, try to present them with balanced meals and sometimes they'll grudgingly eat some of their veggies, but it feels like a loosing battle.
It gets a lot better if they are in kindergarten. Peer pressure is wild and all it takes is one kid to eat something and they will all.
Who's got money to throw away? You pack what they'll eat for school, force them to eat better when you share meals at home. At least you can usually get a kid to eat some kind of fruit at lunch.
The applesauce packs with ground up veggies hide the flavor decently enough.
Sounds like bullshit to me. If your kid doesn't eat it, it's not performative. It's bullshit
It's not bullshit. Research shows that kids need multiple exposures to new foods before they're willing to accept them. It's important to keep offering foods a child has refused before (without pressuring them to eat them, by the way).
And including cold veggies in a plastic bag counts as exposure? Where others aren't eating it?
I'm all for science, but you also have to have common sense or you'll missapply the science. Children aren't machines, they're people. People can be communicated with. People are less adverse to new foods when they see others eat them. People have their own tastes
If your kid doesn't eat the little bag of carrots, maybe find out what veggie they would eat and continue to expose them to carrots on more palatable terms
Man, who packs their kid’s lunch in the shower
Anyway, just shows I don’t have what it takes to be a parent
All it takes is the creativity you get when high. You know what fruit kids will eat? Apple chips, Mango chips, dehydrated strawberries, frozen blueberries
The same fruits you crave when really high
I really liked bananas as a kid. Not dried, just bananas. Frozen were okay, but still just liked them as is.