[Sca-cooks] on kids saying no thanks was Re: Re: P B & J

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

on kids being picky eaters....


seems to me I remember reading something about how we're hard wired as children to be distrustful of strange 
foods....that the unfamiliar can poison us, as our little bodies cant handle the toxins levels a larger body 
can.

make sense that if as an infant (before you select for your own foods) you are exposed to a wide variety of 
things, what is "unfamilair" would be vastly different from a kid fed on salty processed commercial baby food, 
or a strict diet of mac and cheese and hot dogs, with creamed corn on the side (some of the traditional foods 
of my people, along with tuna noodle casserole ;))

I love to cook for kids, as long as they can have frank discussions with me about what they like or dont like, 
and WHY they dont like it. one of my favorite "customers" is a 10 year old boy (egads, is he 13 now?) who will 
try anything but mushrooms, cheese or eggs. and thats cool. its a texture thing. he never whines or complains 
but will pick them out quietly and eat the rest with relish :)

my other friends daughter who will only eat yogurt, hummous baby carrots and plain pasta with canned parm 
cheese (has to be the canned stuff). yeah, her? not so much fun to cook for. we carry a can of the cheese with 
us wen we go out for her to put on her PLAIN buttered noodles and shes ok :)

--AM, who thinks alot of it gets sorted out on its own. kids exhert amazing amts of pressure on each other to 
conform. if you want to go out to your friends, and its a pizza place, you will manage to eat pizza or learn 
to sit quietly and make something when you get home (says the 45+ year old non pizza eater :))