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Our daughter will eat and try just about everything.
Our sons, well, one likes what he likes and will sometimes try new things but not very often. He isn't "picky" but isn't adventurous. Our other son will eat a lot of foods and try just about anything but tends to stick with what he likes. We never forced them to eat anything growing up.
IMHO, it just depends on the kid. Sure parents can feed their kids a good variety of things with a positive attitude and get them to try them. But some kids are very sensitive.
My oldest ate whatever I gave her. To this day she'll try just about anything and generally enjoys a good variety of foods. She's 17. Her younger sister...was a picky eater from the get go. She is MUCH more sensitive in every way and her mood, and tastes change frequently.
So David Burtka can give himself a lot of credit, but if he'd had different kids he might have had different results.
IMHO, it just depends on the kid. Sure parents can feed their kids a good variety of things with a positive attitude and get them to try them. But some kids are very sensitive.
My oldest ate whatever I gave her. To this day she'll try just about anything and generally enjoys a good variety of foods. She's 17. Her younger sister...was a picky eater from the get go. She is MUCH more sensitive in every way and her mood, and tastes change frequently.
So David Burtka can give himself a lot of credit, but if he'd had different kids he might have had different results.
I wish. My son has sensory issues and eats a very plain, simple diet. He doesn't like seasoning, "weird" textures, spicy food, or anything mixed together like stew or casseroles. He does like many healthy things and is very skinny, so I will feed him plain steamed salmon and a salad instead of seafood lasagna. I don't like making our dinner table a battleground, because at the end of a long day for two working parents, it's not worth it. Now, our daughter eats everything but shouldn't. She has a weight problem.
My nephew loves sushi and will pack it in. I envy parents who have children who will happily eat anything and everything, but it wasn't in the cards for this family.
It might do well to think, perhaps, this is just your kid? Your kids uniqueness? We also eat a wide variety of ethnic foods and so do our kids. But my son can not tolerate anything remotely spicy. Just like some adults can't. It is also true preferences change over the lifetime of a human. I know for me, anything acidic when I was a kid tasted like poison. Tomatoes, bell peppers, anything vinegar. That changed as I aged.
I also have an Indian friend and one from Pakistan who told me they do not feed their kids spicy foods back home, and have "kid foods" (although very different then ours).
Do you have one Indian friend? Do you?
I AM Indian, know TONS of Indians, and I promise you that kids eat what the family eats. Maybe not as spicy (hot) at times, but still full flavor spicy. Nobody's making three different meals for each member of the family.
The same can be said of when we lived in Indonesia.
This making all these different foods and having "kids food" is very western. It is actually even a fairly new concept here...go back 100 years in the U.S. and there was none of this culinary coddling.
It depends on the kid I think. My daughter will try anything once. However she doesn't like anything 'sophisticated'. My son was picky as hell from age 2 on. It has been a struggle ever since (he is now 14). We fed them both the same way.
My daughter has always been an adventurous eater. She loves just about anything but pizza (she'll eat it every now again). She had quiche when she was about 18 months and loved it and she likes crab and she loves veggies.
My son on the other hand has always been picky and was always hard to feed him. He was not an eater when small but that's changed over time. He still will only eat certain things but they can be found pretty much anywhere so that's always a plus.
I was watching a show today in which David Burtka (Neil Patrick Harris' husband) was saying that since he is a gourmet cook, their 4 year old twins eat everything and have very mature taste in foods. He mentioned they like duck liver pate, and oysters.
I have a nephew who was that way when he was young. At age three he'd put his napkin across his lamp and dig into whatever was in front of him. He ate all types of ethnic foods... Thai...Mexican....Persian...Indian. (In SoCal ethnic foods and restaurants are very common.) In restaurants he'd ask to order off the adult menu while the other kids were eating mac and cheese. When he was done eating he'd say, "Thank you for my food. I enjoyed it." Eating with him was a pleasure. He knew more about sushi than the adults. (I'm not a fan of sushi. I'd give him my share which made me his favorite relative. )
Our children grew up (for the majority of their lives) living overseas, so they really were exposed to so much more than I was as a child growing up here stateside....they eat just about everything EXCEPT turkey!!! Most of our kids are Asian (adopted) and they all REFUSE to eat turkey! They love chicken, ham, anything else, but not turkey for some reason....so Thanksgiving at our house always included the traditional turkey AND ham so everyone got to enjoy.
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