I’ve always wondered why some of us will devour anything you put in front of them and will want to try new things out of curiosity, while others will be perfectly happy eating the same food day in day out and will freak out at the thought of trying something out of their comfort zone.
Before researching this, I was under the impression that eating habits were entirely attributable to your surroundings, parents, friends, cultural background and past experiences. That turned out to be generally true, but genes can also play a role in being a picky eater.
Some people will react very strongly to the smell of cilantro and associate it with soap. That’s partly because they inherited olfactory receptor genes that are sensitive to the aldehyde flavor compounds found in both cilantro and soap.
Gene-related picky eating only represents a small fraction of the cause, though. Our childhood surroundings will have a much greater influence on what we like and dislike. If you live in a small fishing village and your parents and the whole community eat fish on a daily basis, chances are you will include fish in your diet as an adult. If your parents were adventurous and enjoyed discovering new foods and cultures, you will very likely adopt this behaviour as well and develop a curiosity for the unknown.
For many children, it is not about that little piece of broccoli that they supposedly hate and make them want to vomit. It is all about control. They need to know that they are in control of what they eat, when they eat and how food is prepared. Every attempt to make them eat the food you serve will be met by a rejection and possibly a temper tantrum because that is tantamount to losing control of the situation.
Whether you’ve become a picky eater or you were born that way, it is entirely possible to acquire a taste for the foods you previously didn’t like.
Here are four things you can do to help curb picky eating habits:
- Introduce new food tastes and textures regularly: This doesn’t mean that you should go all out and serve fried tarantulas or prepare baluts. You just need to get exposed to a wider variety of foods by introducing one new element at least once a week, then every few days, and eventually in every meal.
- Eat together and on the same schedule every day: Mealtime should be a pleasant experience that takes place at around the same time every day. Use this time to talk about your day, share anecdotes, but also discuss the food that is on the table: textures, tastes, colours, health benefits, how they interact with each other. You can also ask your family members to guess all the ingredients that were used to prepare the meal.
- Offer (uninteresting) options: Do not prepare alternative meals for your kids because they don’t like what’s on their plate. Instead, offer them boring alternatives such as plain oatmeal, untoasted plain bread, or a bowl of white rice. They will have a choice to make but none of the options will come from them. If they’re really stubborn, they will go for the boring meal once or twice, but in the end, they will probably fold and eat the meal that you wanted them to eat.
- Get involved in the kitchen: Whoever is not in charge of cooking the meals should progressively get more involved in the kitchen. In the case of your kids, this will allow them to retain a certain form of control over the meal, and for all others, it will eliminate the element of surprise by knowing exactly what is being served and how it was prepared.
Most importantly, keep in mind that eating a meal should be enjoyable! If that’s all you manage to achieve towards getting yourself or your kids to become “flexible eaters”, then you’ve gone a long way!
Very interesting article. I will try to apply some advises to diversify the menu of my picky eaters.