14 Tips for Preparing Children's Taste Buds for Change

 As a new round of COVID lockdowns begins, we’re again faced with cooking from scratch and doing our best with limited ingredients and options.  These changes can be particularly difficult on children.  If you aren’t yet faced with these challenges, you’re probably like me, wondering if 2021 is going to say to 2020, “Here, hold my beer.” 

So here are a few tips for making these dietary challenges a little easier for children.

Reduce dependence on convenience foods.  For children, the best bet is to start them off right, without the convenience of cold cereal and snack foods.  It’s as much about training them as it is you.  Get them used to homemade hot cereal, but keep a package or two of cold cereal hidden for special occasions or some welcome relief. 

Children have very sensitive taste buds. Foods that may taste perfectly acceptable to adults may gag children.  This is most commonly seen with powdered milk.  Learn to improve the taste of powdered milk with sugar and vanilla or almond extract or some mixes like Nestle’s Quik.  Or make yogurt with powdered milk and sweeten it with jam. 

Limited diet.  A lot of children can eat the same couple of foods day in and day out.  Start now to add some variety to the menu.  Not only will they be getting a better balance of nutrients, you’ll be expanding their horizons and willingness to try new foods before a crisis occurs.

Comfort foods.  Make sure to have a good supply of their comfort foods for particularly stressful days.

Keep trying.  It is easier to introduce new foods in comfortable circumstances than it is in a time of stress.  If they balk at new foods, keep presenting them.  After seeing these new foods on the dinner table a few times, they become familiar and then acceptable. 

Don’t present new foods when children are really hungry.  They’re more accepting when they aren’t starving.  Make new food options a part of the meal, not the entire meal.

Make little changes.  Instead of the usual maple syrup for pancakes, perhaps try caramel syrup or a fruit syrup made with corn syrup and jelly or jam.  Perhaps start out with both, so that children have an option.  They can have a pancake with the maple syrup first and then one with a new flavor. 

Add a little cuteness.  Making whole wheat pancakes for the first time and a little concerned about how Johnny and Susie are going to react?  Make Mickey Mouse heads or some other shape.  Make smiley faces with chocolate chips, nuts, or blueberries. 

Wean them off commercial packaging.  If cooking from scratch is entirely new, wean them away from pretty packaging and perfectly formed food with sweets.  Homemade pop tarts aren’t really like their store-bought counterparts.  My husband raised our children on the store-bought version, but they definitely prefer the homemade.  It’s a really easy switch to make.

Add whole grains and beans in gradually, if necessary.  Children’s bodies also need to gradually adjust to a change in diet.  Perhaps begin introducing whole wheat by using it in cookies or cakes.  Beans can be incorporated with tacos or hummus. 

Say yes to sugar.  For some children transitioning from fresh fruit to canned will be a little rough.  Canned fruits can often be purchased in heavy syrup, light syrup, and no-added-sugar options.  Be sure to get fruits canned in heavy syrup, if possible.  The extra sugar preserves canned fruits for a much longer period than the other options.  Of course, the extra sugar will also appeal more to children.  When serving, drain off the syrup if it is not needed and combine it with jam to make a fruit syrup for pancakes. 

Accept some pickiness.  Some children are just going to refuse certain foods.  QOTPE loathes the texture of onions.  I might chop them a little coarser for her, but that’s as far as it goes.  She can just keep picking them out.  I’m not expecting this to change.  I was forced to eat scrambled eggs as a child and promptly threw them up.  It’s been 50 years, and I still won’t eat them. 

Don’t force children.  Whatever you do, don’t force or berate children into eating foods they don’t want.  Any crisis will only become worse if you throw in a power struggle with children over food.  Recognize that if you are stressed, they will be more stressed and will act out. 

Start now.  Just like everything else with preparedness, preparing the taste buds for a change in diet happens in advance.  Before the crisis.  And while we often hear that hunger is the best seasoning, this often is not the case with children.  Today is a great day to identify the changes you can make now to reduce the shock when your family is living off the food storage. 

 11 december 2022