How I Won The Green Bean Battle

photo by OliBac / edited by me

It was no secret. My son hated vegetables.

I had done everything “right.” I did everything that was supposed to help you avoid ending up with a picky eater: ate a varied diet while pregnant, exclusively breastfed, transitioned to solids with baby-led weaning. When he started on solids, he ate everything. He loved vegetables. “Sweet,” I thought, “it worked!” However, our vegetable heaven didn’t last long. As soon as he got a taste for the rest of the world of flavor, there was no turning back. He wanted meat, dairy, fruit – anything but vegetables.

At one point I took an inventory of the vegetables he would eat. It looked a little like this…

Things he would pretty much always eat:

1. Sweet potatoes (duh, they’re sweet!)
2. Tomatoes (might technically be a fruit, but I’m counting it!)
3. Corn (grain – I know, I know, but I’m desperate here!)

Things that he would sometimes, not usually, eat:

1. Cucumbers
2. Peas
3. Carrots

Obviously we had a little nutrition problem here. I mean, come on, he didn’t even like mashed potatoes! What kind of kid doesn’t like mashed potatoes?

Another thing that I would like to mention is that it wasn’t that he didn’t have an adventurous palate or like bold flavors. He would routinely eat spicy Mexican food, sour plain yogurt and sauerkraut, and bitter grapefruits. The only thing he was waging war against was the veggies.

However, fast forward about 1 1/2 years and the list of vegetables he will routinely eat has grown dramatically. Sure, vegetables still aren’t his favorite, but we have seen improvement. How you ask? Well, one of the first things that really helped was that I read the book French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon. In this book, Karen tells the story of how her two girls transformed from picky eaters to great eaters upon moving to France and following 10 “food rules.” I thought this book was full of great information and helpful tips, not to mention a interesting look at a different culture. I didn’t put into practice all her rules, but her book greatly influenced how I view the topic of picky eating.

So, using that book as a starting point, I put into practice the following “food guidelines” that would work with a toddler.

1. Pickiness is most likely a phase. This was my favorite tidbit that I took away from Le Billon’s book. The majority of toddlers and preschool age kids go through a phase of pickiness. The solution is to expose them to as wide a variety of foods as possible before the phase and then stick it out once the phase hits. Many parents make the mistake of catering to their child’s pickiness, only feeding them “kid friendly” foods, thereby keeping them stuck in the pickiness phase. I have definitely been guilty of this, but I try to avoid it when I can!
2. Keep the atmosphere around food positive. As much as possible I tried to keep meal time a happy time. There was a few times we “forced” him to try a bite of something. However, eating really is something you have to choose to do for yourself. We couldn’t chew and swallow the food for him. I usually just encouraged him to “just try one bite” and praise him when he did. We also modeled enjoying eating all our food. Oftentimes he was more likely to try something when he saw grandpa or daddy enjoying it.
3. One bite of everything. I would put just one bite sized portion of the foods I knew he didn’t care for. Sometimes I would tell him he had to eat everything before he got second helpings of his favorites, sometimes not. The important thing was that the food was always there for him as an option. We never talked about it as a food he didn’t like, we just kept offering it under the assumption he would learn to like it eventually.
4. Keep trying a wide variety of foods. I didn’t want “picky eater” to become a label, so I had him keep trying new foods, or foods cooked in different ways. This was how I came to find out he loved sauerkraut and grapefruits – both foods I thought he would refuse.
5. Get him involved in the food preparation. This is a tip you see a lot, but I really think it makes a difference. Last year we even had a garden he could help with and he loved it. He helped plant, care for, harvest, and preserve many different types of vegetables. It even encouraged him to try one of his most detested foods – green beans. He would still spit them out, but you could tell after being so proud of helping grow them, he wanted to eat them too!
6. Use choices when possible. Having a choice between two equally healthy options usually ensures that he will eat what he is served. For example, he is more likely to eat sweet peppers (and even get excited about it) if I give him a choice of colors. He also loves choosing vegetables at the grocery store. One time he ate over half of an English cucumber in one sitting because he picked it out himself.
7. Make vegetables normal. So often, veggies get the “blech stigma.” They are seen as yucky foods that we only eat because they are healthy. To reinforce that veggies are just a normal part of the foods we eat I would include them in pretend play a lot. For example, pretending to work in the garden or pretending to eat salad in the play kitchen.

K not liking vegetables had become so normal that when out of nowhere, in the same week, he ate salad, broccoli, and even the hated green beans. I was astonished! I really believe that a lot of it had to do with the tip number one. I had accepted his pickiness as a phase, but I kept him in a vegetable rich environment. He is still eating green beans like they have always been his favorite and I can proudly say that I emerged the champion in the battle over the green beans. Sure, he’ll probably always have some foods he doesn’t like, but so do I! However, his continuing acceptance of vegetables gives me confidence that he is well on his way to being a great eater.

Do you have any tips for picky eaters? I’d love to hear them. I’m always looking for more tips to add to my bag of tricks!

*Note: for the purposes of this post I am referring only to kids who are truly “picky” and just need to expand their palates. I acknowledge that there are also kids who have sensory issues or other difficulties that can sometimes look like just “pickiness” but are completely different than the topic I’m addressing here.