Kids Cuisine

I tried it, I really did. I made some food look funny to see if my kids would eat without complaining. The idea is that they would be so tickled they would forget to think about the actual food and just eat it.

I had read Brian Wansink’s article earlier that day about how to change the perception of food by simply using words that sound appetizing. His research examples included a session feeding preschoolers who “devoured broccoli trees because they were pretending to be dinosaurs eating a dinosaur tree.” This wasn’t a new idea, plenty of parenting tips about feeding picky kids recommend making funny faces or naming food after characters or animals. But he’s a researcher and he had data. Something I could relate to.

I had never gone there before. It just isn’t my personality to make up silly names for peas or craft faces out of a veggie plate. Plus, I admit I had a bias against making food extra fun for kids. Is food supposed to fun? Sure, eating together should be fun, but does the food need to be silly or look like something other than food? I share that thinking about hiding veggies in brownies. Do we really have to do that extra work? Isn’t eating food something kids will do because, you know, it’s necessary for life?

So I found myself placing evil-looking eyes, nose and mouth made of carrots in a pile of couscous carefully molded to look like a head. The meal was basic but not too shabby. A nice Steelhead trout, couscous and the carrots. Here is what happened:

Me: “Time to eat!”

Them: Arrive at table. Look at plates. Say nothing.

After several seconds…

Six-year-old: Having eaten some fish and the nose and eye carrots… “Why did you do that?”

Me: Do what?

Six-year-old: “That!” Pointing to plate.

Me: “I thought it would be fun.”

Six-year-old: “Oh.”

That was it. No more discussion. Even my usually talkative and silly three-year-old never mentioned it. They ate the carrots, something they would have done anyway. But my picky eater six-year-old wouldn’t touch the couscous. We don’t eat it often and he asked what it was. I said, “It’s couscous - mini pasta.” Still not even a bite.

So, my experiment didn’t prove that fun food helps a picky eater eat more. But maybe it’s just my family and the serious DNA we share. Then again, maybe my faces just weren’t fun enough.