I have a 5 years old son who has not even tasted a single piece of grape or strawberry or blueberry or Orange till date. He is so picky and so adamant about the stuff that he will eat that you can't pursuade him to eat anything that he doesn't like just by looking at it.
For the veggies, I somehow cook it with rice or put it in his bread and give it to him like that, but for the fruit, it's so difficult because he won't even touch it with his fingers, be it banana or orange or any other fruit.
I've tried giving him banana & mango milk shakes, which he drinks if no fruit lumps come in his mouth, but I'm totally at loss as to how introduce other fruits to him. Please help!
Regards,
PS
Will he drink fruit juice, if it's completely liquified? If so, I'd recommend getting a juicer (so as to avoid the additives in commercial fruit juices)
At the age of five, I think it's important just to reason with him. I mean, if you never try anything, you might be missing out on the best food in the world!! Use that as an example, with his favorite food..."Imagine you never tried pizza because you thought you wouldn't like it, and you'd be missing out on something so yummy!"
Another example..."Candy flavors are made after fruit, because the people who make candy think fruit flavors are the best. Fruit taste even better than candy!"
I don't know, just kind of rambling here. :)
I would just keep trying it...try serving other fruits besides the basics, try the "lick test"...(my two year old is incredibly picky and won't try a lot of foods but I can almost get her to at least lick it..."Please just lick it and mommy will be happy." On a few occasions, she liked the lick and went on to take a bite.)
Also, you can try serving them with dips of some sort...peanut butter, yogurt, etc.
Let him go to the store and pick out a fruit he wants to try...tell him he can pick out anything, weigh it (it's fun, even if it's not necessary), bag it, pay for it, etc...but he has to try at least 1 (or 2 or 3, whatever) bites when he gets home.
Sounds like a sensory issue. Explore whether your child has other related issues. It was YEARS before I'd eat pinapple due to texture.
Have you tried making frut-kebobs? Maybe if ti's on a stick and he doesnt' have to touch it he'll eat it? Make tiny pieces in case he jsut doesn't like biting into it. You can put all kinds of fruti into a smoothy - you make have to strain it. r buy a juiceer. He'll miss all the pulpy fiber - but it's something.
Cook with it.
There are sweet and sour chicken recipes that use pineapple.
There are butternut soups that you puree with apples in it.
I know a mashed sweet potato dish that has mashed bananas in it.
(I love my immersion blender for this - you can puree it in the pot on the stove).
Banana bread, etc.
You can puree and hide fruit in may things just like you would veggies.
Does he have a texture issue? My SS can't eat a lot of fruits anymore and it started with gagging on some fruit...maybe cherries? But anyway now he's cut a lot of foods out of his diet for texture alone. I would talk to his pediatrician about what you should worry about and what isn't an issue. My SS (an adult) makes a lot of smoothies with yogurt and fruit. Would your son also take a frozen juice pop? You can make them at home with juice and blended fruit.
It sounds like a texture issue to me. Concentrate on the veggies. Offer all kinds, in cooked and raw format. One of my kids won't eat cooked peas, but he will eat raw sugar snap peas, and even frozen peas, while still frozen!
Fruit is delicious because it contains so much natural sugar. It should be eaten like a treat. Occasionally, and usually it's natural form. Things like juice/smoothies/shakes often have more sugar than a can of soda, so those things should be very rare in anyone's diet.
I would think it's a texture thing, but how would he know if he's never even tried to taste? It sounds like he's just decided he doesn't like these things without even trying.
My kids were not picky at all, but I've dealt with plenty of them.
I sold kids on my yogurt sundaes.
They consist of yogurt instead of ice cream, bananas, strawberries, blueberries or blackberries, I sprinkle with brown sugar or some cookie crumbles and dot with real whipped cream. My kids like nut sprinkles as well. You hide the fruit by slicing it up and stirring it in the yogurt, then the brown sugar or cookie crumbles, then the whipped cream.
I never had a die-hard picky kid refuse to eat one. In fact, they told their moms they wanted to make them at home.
It's worth a try.
Sliced bananas in a bowl with orange juice is another great snack.
If you have an old fashioned orange juicer, you might enlist your son in mashing the oranges to make juice.
If you slice an orange thinly with the ends pointing west to east, you can cut the rind and splay it out. You will end up with wonderful little bite sized triangles of orange. They're great plain or in yogurt as well.
Does he like peanut butter and jelly?
You can easily make your own jellies or jams. Freezer jelly is super easy to make. Have him help you make some. He may like eating it that way.
Just try to get creative. Enlist his help in making things and that could make a difference. If the rest of the family is loving it, he may want to try it.
I'm not advising that you freak him out, but you might want to talk to him about scurvy. If he's interested in history at all, back in the old days when people were on ships and discovering the new world and new countries, many people died because they didn't know to take fruits with them. Fruits are loaded with vitamins and other things that our bodies need and can't live without. You can give him vitamins, but that's not the same. He doesn't have to love all fruits, but he needs to at least try them before he refuses them.
You can try chocolate covered strawberries and oranges. Very easy to make.
You can also boil down blueberries and strawberries and make syrup for pancakes.
Surely, you will find a way for your son not to have a fear of these fruits and he may even realize that they are really good for him as far as his growth and strength.
I wish you the best.
Smoothies? Real fruit Popsicles?
Did you give him pureed fruit as a baby? If so, it's probably not the taste that he dislikes. You can try to feed him applesauce and fruit cooked or baked into other dishes. And if he is willing to drink a fruit shake, then by all means, get the blender out and make him a fruit smoothie every day, even if you have to blend every lump out of it!
It sounds like a textrue issues. if you get him to drink it, that is helpful. But if he is having texture issues there are therapists out there that will help you. Talk to the Ped.
Ideas in the mean time.
I mix fruit with yogurt. You can puree the fruit and strain it to get the "chunks out" and mix with yogurt.
Will he do applesauce?
There is a difference between texture and taste. My son loves the watermellon taste, but will not eat watermellon. So I puree it mix with water and yogurt and freeze for popsicles.
Good luck
For my kids, if they don't eat the vegetable, they can't get a treat. I get a lot of veg down them this way. But you have to mean it, no healthy foods, no treat. I also appeal to their vanity, "green stuff makes you pretty (and of course smart, tall and healthy)." "if you don't eat your vegetables and fruit you can't be pretty tall or smart."
Not the best approach, but what I did to convince my son to try some foods was to bribe him with money. It worked. Nowadays (he is only 4, will be 5 next month), I just plead with him to 'just take a teeny taste and if you don't like it, then that's fine and you don't have to eat it'. Takes a while and a lot of whining, and sometimes I will pull out some money to sweeten the deal. By money, I am just talking small change. He doesn't know the difference.
The first time I did the money thing, I pulled out some change and offered a dime for every bite he took and I believe, just to get him to initially 'try' something, I offered 50 cents. And I let him put the coins in his piggy bank right then and there, so it was kind of a fun thing for him.you just have to keep at it and the more times he sees fruit, he might be up for trying it. My son was SUPER picky and gagged on things he didnt like the texture of. There are still lots of things he doesn't like but I don't let him off the hook until he at least tries it. We can sit at the table a very long time some days!
I hate fruit.
In general, at least.
I eat muscat grapes one week a year. I'll have 1 or 2 oranges a year. Maybe 1 strawberry smoothie (last on 2 years ago). Mangos are peppery enough I can deal (but prefer them in salsa).
I just don't like most fruit, most of the time. They're too sweet/sour/etc. Yuck.
Now, I DO eat a lot of savory fruit (tomatoes, avocados), and I cook with acids (lemon/lime/orange). I drink Bloody Mary mix. I like veggies, greens, etc. just not the sticky, sweet, sour, icky "fruity" fruits.
There's no rule that one HAS to eat fruit.
They're MOSTLY just sugar. The very few vitamins fruits have (C mostly, but some others), can be gotten from sooooo many other sources.
Most people like fruit because they're sweet.
I just don't have a big sweet tooth.
I'll eat cake, drink soda, etc. But I'm just not big on how overly sweet fruit is, nor do I want sweet stuff every day, much less every meal!
(My one caveat here is meat+fruit. Duck & cherry, pork & plantains, meatballs & lingonberry... But cooking fruit, especially with meat changes the gag-me aspect I associate with icky raw fruit. As long as cooking doesn't add sugar. Fruit pies, etc. are even grosser than raw fruit.)
