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Help with Emily

post #1 of 16
1/26/09 at 1:45pm
Thread Starter 
She will NOT eat vegetables. I see a lot of kids her age eating salad, carrots, broccoli, green beans, and all kinds of stuff. She will not eat it. Here is a list of what she will eat:

Steak
Grilled or baked pork chops
Chicken (grilled or broiled breast, fried legs, or chicken nuggets/fingers)
Fried rice (like from the Chinese restaurant)
Blackeyed peas (sometimes)
French fries
Macaroni and cheese (sometimes)
Grilled cheese sandwiches
Plain cheese sandwiches (I make both of these with 2% cheese singles)
Gogurt
Danimals drinkable yogurt
Applesauce
Apples
Strawberries
Mandarin orange slices (sometimes)
Red grapes

She eats other stuff, but I am mainly talking dinner foods and healthy foods. Not that I am saying fries are healthy, but she will eat those with dinner anytime!

Any ideas on how I can get her to try new vegetables? She won't even try them most of the time.
My sister was a picky eater growing up, and I have mixed feelings about forcing kids to eat foods. My parents did this, and pretty much every time my sister was in the bathroom throwing up shortly after dinner.
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post #2 of 16
1/26/09 at 2:00pm

Re: Help with Emily

Best advice I can give is to make her try 2-3 bites of a veggie at every dinner. If she doesn't eat more than that, then she doesn't. As long as she is getting protien and plenty of fruit, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Does she like spaghetti? You can puree darn near any veggie (like carrots, celery and onion) and add it to the sauce and she'll never know the difference. You can do that with alot of sauces.

Will she eat soup? Pureed veggies work GREAT in ANY kind of soup. I used to puree the above veggies and add them to homemade chicken noodle soup to get the kids to eat them. In fact, those veggies are very mild and my kids NEVER tasted them in anything I added them to, including meatloaf, salibury steaks, and hamburgers.

I just always made them eat 3 bites and made sure they took their vitamins everyday. Drew hated veggies. But now he eats alot more of them. I also found that he eats alot more veggies raw than he does cooked. I'm like that too. Or try giving her dips with aw veggies. Mine like ranch, but Ally really like the veggies dips that Kroger sells. Heck if it works, it's worth it!
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post #3 of 16
1/26/09 at 2:01pm

Re: Help with Emily

Oh! Does she like chips? Do you remember Dawn talking about those sweet potatoe chips she made in the oven and how good they were? Maybe you can try something like that!
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post #4 of 16
1/26/09 at 2:02pm

Re: Help with Emily

My children don't care for their veggies really either. I just ALWAYS make sure to offer them at every meal, put a few on their plates and make them at least TRY one every once in awhile. Also, you can puree' some veggies and put them in your spaghetti sauce and things like that she won't notice. Otherwise, just make sure that she takes her vitamins.
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post #5 of 16
1/26/09 at 2:03pm

Re: Help with Emily

GMTA Brenda We must have been posting at the same time!
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post #6 of 16
1/26/09 at 2:06pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Help with Emily

The only condiment she will eat is ketchup!
And she won't eat hamburgers or meatloaf.
She does eat country fried steak, no gravy.
And she loves my spaghetti, which is good because I make chunky spaghetti with lots of vegetables, so I guess she gets vegetables that way.
She loves soup, but only Campbell's soup, chicken noodle, but at least she does get vegetables in that.
Brenda, I am going to try your suggestion and get her to try 2 or 3 bites of a vegetable at dinner each night.
She does take her multi vitamin pretty much every day.
Thanks for the ideas and encouragement ladies. I am feeling a little better about all this.
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post #7 of 16
1/26/09 at 2:12pm

Re: Help with Emily

I think what Brenda and Krista said is about the best I can offer too.

Austin will only eat corn.. and then theres Dylan who will take a salad over a hamburger/hotdog ANY day!
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post #8 of 16
1/26/09 at 2:17pm

Re: Help with Emily

This is a big deal in my house, Jimmy will NOT eat hardly any food item. Other than just keep trying and my ped told me that they need to be 8 10 12 years old before they will eat things on their own. The other thing he said was you will never ever read a news article or magazine article where a child starved themselves. Some how mother nature does it's work....

I don't believe the starving thing especially with Autistic children whom like mine will never say he's hungry....
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post #9 of 16
1/26/09 at 3:04pm

Re: Help with Emily

I'm lucky because Christian and Kelsey eat just about everything....even asparagus and brussel sprouts...lol. I think the main reason they will is because in the summer we grow a lot of our own and they think that is cool.

But the ladies offered up great suggestions. Maybe just make her try a bite and let her go. I was forced by a grandparent to eat something and to this day I gag if I see it. and I know she would never have made me eat it, if she thought I would have been that bothered by it!
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post #10 of 16
1/26/09 at 3:36pm

Re: Help with Emily

My kids don't like veggies too much either. They will eat brocolli w/ cheese so I try to make that a couple of days a week. I do the sneaky puree thing with carrots in spaghetti sauce. Can't even taste the difference. Oh, and they LOVE mashed taters, so when I make them I sneak in some cauliflower and mash with the taters and they don't know the difference.
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post #11 of 16
1/26/09 at 3:39pm

Re: Help with Emily

Does she like juice? One glass of V8 Fussion equals several servings of fruit and veggies. My kids love it. It is another way to sneak in the veggies. Also, in the potato chips section of Walmart, they have a selection of healthy baked chips made from whole grains or veggies other than white potatoes. Also, potatoes have gotten a bad wrap I think. The skins are full of nutrients. If she likes potato skins that is.

I remember when I was a kid I hated chinese food, mexican food, heck about everything. Now I eat a wide variety of foods. I think a lot of people expand their food palette when they grow up.

I empathize with your frustration. My kids barely eat veggies and fruits too.
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post #12 of 16
1/26/09 at 3:41pm

Re: Help with Emily

What Grace said reminded me...I used to get the Gerber Graduate Veggie Crackers. They taste good and 10 little crackers is one serving of veggies.
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post #13 of 16
1/26/09 at 3:57pm

Re: Help with Emily

Seeing Michelle's post reminded me, when I was a kid i would never have eaten gumbo, but my youngest is nuts over it. Gumbo is pretty veggie filled (at least the way we make it) and if they don't eat the veggies, it has cooked long enough for a lot of them to be absorbed in the rice and broth.
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post #14 of 16
1/26/09 at 9:22pm

Re: Help with Emily

Campbells' Chicken Noodle can be used! Both of mine prefered that to homemade, anyway. The next time you make a roast, add extra carrots, celery and onions. After dinner, puree what is left in 1/4 to 1/2 cup servings (snack bags work great for this, or those plastic baby food containers!). the next time you make her chicke noodle, add 1/2 cup of the puree. It adds a little flavor, but not enough that she's going to notice since they use those veggies anyway. Give it a try. Can't hurt!
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post #15 of 16
1/26/09 at 9:29pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Help with Emily

We had beef stew tonight, and Emily wanted Campbell's soup for dinner. I took potatoes and carrots out of the stew and cut them up and put them on a plate. I made her try one bite of each one, and then she willingly ate almost all the bites on her plate. She didn't LIKE the vegetables, but she made an effort. I am proud of her. I told her the new deal is that she has to try at least two bites of each vegetable we have at dinner each night. So she asked that tomorrow night we make kernel corn and blackeyed peas and pork chops, so we will.
Oh, and Brenda, she had her dad take some of the carrots from the stew and put them in her soup and she ate them that way.
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post #16 of 16
1/26/09 at 9:31pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Help with Emily

Lenora, I had forgotten about V8 Fusion! She does like that, so I think I'll buy some next time I go to the grocery store. And I know you are right. I eat a lot more foods now than I did when I was young. In the past couple of years I have even added foods to my list, like green olives guacamole (very recently) and hummus.
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