Picky kids and a varied diet: two things parents everywhere grumble about, right? There are books on how to get your kids to eat more new foods. There are thousands of “kid-friendly” recipes for practically everything under the sun. There are guides to getting your child to learn to like foods they currently don’t like. “Have them try it on at least X number of occasions, but don’t force them to eat more than a few bites of it each time!”
If you’re like me, you’ve seen all the little reminders of what you should be doing to help improve your child’s palate. And if you’re like me, you’ve fought a hundred battles with picky kids and sometimes resorted to begging and pleading for that one bite to pass gritted teeth as your child resists.
It gets exhausting. Sometimes you really do have to choose your battles as a parent, and sometimes that means cereal for dinner wins. I get it.
This summer, I stumbled upon a way to convince my kids to try new foods. Well, my oldest two kids anyway; I’m still working on the pre-k youngest. And while you might be hoping for yet another miracle “mom hack” that might work for your kids, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed…unless your kid is as obsessed with geography as mine.
My oldest son has been into geography for well over a year now. He talks about countries non-stop, plays geography-based games on Roblox and his iPad. He’s been building a map of the world in Minecraft, complete with using a YouTube tutorial to color each pixelated country with its flag.
We’ve encouraged this interest in geography as well. We’ve got geography-based board games, a huge poster of the world tacked in our bonus room, a globe, and two children’s atlases. He even memorized “Yakko’s World Song” from the Animaniacs only to tell me “Mama, this song isn’t correct because it came out in 1993.” (Ouch, kiddo, way to make me feel old!)
So why am I talking about geography when I told you this was about expanding my kids’ palates?
Well, this summer my son kept talking about trying foods from different countries, and I decided to make a deal with him. If he could give up his beloved chicken nuggets one or two nights a week, I’d make foods from a variety of countries and he could try them.
To sweeten the deal, I built him a Culinary Explorer Passport that lives in a little folder. I created a passport title page where he could write in his name and the date we started and ended the experiment, a list page for a spot to list every food he tried and state which country it was from, and individual Country Exploration Pages. Those pages included spots to color in country flags, list the date we tried a food, rate the meal, and write down little facts. I also bought a couple packs of country and geography themed stickers he gets to use on completed pages.
Our first experiment was a butter chicken dish from India that I modified to have a little less spice for his low spice tolerance, and pairing that with aloo tikki and naan turned out to be a hit. But it wasn’t just my oldest child who joined in on this experiment. I made a rule that each country night would mean no one got chicken nuggets, and so my middle and youngest kids had to get on board with finding something to eat.
We’ve slacked off just a bit since school started back, but I plan to continue adding new countries to our list. On the bright side of this experiment, it has meant I get to be creative in my cooking and explore new spice mixes, recipes, and ingredients and convince my kids to eat them. They’ve tried phyllo dough, baharat (an Egyptian spice mix), lentils, curry spices, bok choy, and more things they’d normally turn their noses up at. Sometimes they’ve even surprised me with the things they’ve enjoyed, like that butter chicken they lapped up. Sure, some foods haven’t been a hit, but I think having the chance to write down his thoughts and even rate things with “meh” or “yucky” has made my oldest child more apt to try them, knowing I won’t get upset if he doesn’t like them.
So far, we’ve had meals from India, Mexico, Brazil, France, Greece, Italy, The Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Egypt, and more. It’s been a great project to let me flex my cooking skills, too.
Have I given you a “mom hack” to help you expand your kids’ palates? No, probably not. But maybe you’ll find your own “hack” like I did. Not every kid will be obsessed with geography to the point he’s asking to try foods from different countries. You might find some inspiration in something your child likes, though, and use that as a springboard to coax them into eating more variety.
