5 Ways to Encourage Kids to Try New Foods

Kids are naturally wary about trying new foods. And their taste buds are the last sense to develop. (That’s why “you’ll like this when you are older is often true)

But there are some simple ways to encourage your young children to try new foods:

1. Let your child help with prep in the kitchen.  Research has found that if kids help with the meal, they will at least be interested in trying out what they created. Researchers at Teachers College at Columbie University found “Kids don’t usually like radishes, but we found that if kids cut up radishes and put them in the salad, they love the radishes.”
2. Stay neutral about new foods.  Don’t pressure them to try them, don’t punish or offer rewards. For example don’t tell them they have to sit until they try a bit or may watch t.v. if they do.  Studies at Penn State show that even if you can bribe a kid to try a food, she won’t eat it on her own later.   Just put the food out there, offer a portion, eat it yourself and see what happens.  Oh, don’t get discouraged.  It usually takes 15 presentations of new foods before a child will try it.
3. Don’t have forbidden foods– a food that is forbidden is more likely to be desired.  Studies show that kids will eat up to 3x more of restricted foods when they are offered and are more likely to binge.
4. Kids mimic your food choices. So if you are dieting, or hate onions, your child will likely restrict his food and hate the same foods as do you.  Be careful of constant dieting.  It tends to set your kids up for eating disorders later in life because they start out seeing foods as good and bad or as forbidden.

Make vegetables tasty and fun.  It’s perfectly ok to put peanut butter or cream cheese in celery.  Ranch dressing and butter are your friends.  The calories in sauces won’t hurt a child who is choosing healthy foods.

Thomas Learning Centers provides NECPA accredited preschool and childcare at the most affordable rates in the Denver Metro Area.  Check us out at http://www.thomaslearningcenters.com , click on the offers below, drop in for a visit to get to know more about us. We’d love to meet you!

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About Thomas Learning Centers

Although we have been providing childcare services since 1971, our intent to provide the highest quality, affordable child care and early education experiences available for your child has never wavered. Our people are standing in your place while you are on your job, so quality care, the kind you would give, is a very serious obligation for us. We look after your child with the same warm concern that you would. We want to be your home away from home. Providing food and enough rest are part of this quality care. We prepare breakfast, a well-balanced lunch and a nutritious afternoon snack each day. In the summer children are able to help prepare food with ingredients they have grown at school. Planning the day so children don’t get overtired is a part of it. Comforting children when something goes wrong, just as you would do, is a steady concern. While you are busy at your job, the children are busy learning with their friends. We believe “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” – Fred Rogers). Children talk a lot as they play together. They look at books and pictures and exhibits in the rooms. They hear stories. They work on puzzles. They take trips. They paint. They work with clay and blocks. They pretend and make believe. Having your child at Thomas Learning Centers means that your child has two sets of caring people, both of whom want the days to go well. We hope you will try us. We know you will be pleased.

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