If your kids are resistant to new foods you’re selling the wrong stuff.

Try any (or all) of these techniques and watch your kids clamor for new foods.

  • Let your child pick out a new treat at the grocery store at least once a month.  No restrictions.
  • Go to the ice cream store but insist that everyone in the family try something new.
  • Buy a box of Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins and do a blind tasting.
  • Let your child dig into a bag of candy…blindfolded.
  • Have each member of your family choose a treat, and then have everyone pass their treat to the family member on their right.  Take a bite.  Pass to the right again.

FYI: I’m not suggesting you add more crap to your kids’ diets.  I’m suggesting you use the crap they already eat a little more strategically.  Remember, it doesn’t matter what your kids eat. What matters is how often they eat it.

I can hear you saying, “I have no problems introducing new cookies.  It’s new real foods my kid won’t touch.”

Let’s face it, being open to new foods is a state of mind.  Read Mind Over Matter.

Most kids willingly eat new junk but parents don’t call a new flavor of ice cream new, so it falls under the radar. When parents do call something new, it’s usually healthy and boring. So kids get it into their heads that new foods are bad and boring, that they’re more like broccoli than brownies.  No wonder kids are resistant.

Toddlers get it right.  I always canvass parents at workshops to see what new foods they recently offered. The list usually looks something like this:  vegetable, chicken, fish…

But new cookies, cakes, ice cream and candy are just as new as any new vegetable.  See where I’m going?

Get your toddler used to the idea that new foods are amazing, delicious, awesome and worth the risk>, and eventually you’ll have no problem selling other new foods too.

Don’t be afraid to take a walk on the wild side. Then, when you do start introducing real foods set the right mood:

 ~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~