Do you guys have a pickey eater in the family?

My 4 year old is sometimes picky, but the funny thing is she loves steak. she ate 3 helpings of steak 2 nights ago, she asked for a 4th,but we made her eat her corn too.

GATraveller said:

Man - that is one of my pet peeves.  I'll eat anything that doesn't eat me first as long as it's hot and there's lots of it.  One of my girls is fairly picky.  We make sure they try at least one bite of everything we cook so they can make a logical decision instead of just refusing to eat something based on sight and/or smell.  My wife has gotten food poisoning from Salmon (from local restaurant) and crawfish (from next door neighbor) so now won't even consider either.  The salmon one kills me because she used to eat it once a week up till getting sick from it.  
 

I can understand where your wife is coming from on the avoiding salmon and crawfish after the food poisoning incident.  I got food poisoning from tilapia once at a local restaurant.  Tilapia was never my favorite fish but I used to eat it quite regularly and I didn't hate it for sure but now I can't even get it up to my mouth without feeling sick.  I'm sure it's a mental thing from the experience but I swear everytime I've tried to eat it since as soon as I get it close to my mouth and nose when taking a bite I feel terrible.  Best thing for me is to just avoid it.

My wife is pretty picky but she's come a long way in the 6 years we've been together.  When we first started dating her go to order when we would go out was chicken tenders and fries.  She just wouldn't risk not liking something.  Since then she's expanded on some things held pat on others, she still orders the same meals each time we go to the regular places but it's no longer chicken tenders.  She still hates mushrooms, onions, asparagus, and dislikes broccoli but she will eat broccoli begrudgingly.  I've figured out it all comes to how she grew up and what they ate.  Her family does a lot of casseroles and one pot type meals and she hates those with a passion.  It sucks when you want to do something in the crock pot over the winter time but I'm okay with it because my family didn't do a lot of those dishes growing up so I'm not really giving anything up either.

I hate to admit doing this to her but to try and expand her pallet I decided to take the approach you would on a child and just hid the things she didn't like by cutting them up as small as I could and mixing them in.  She'd get so pissed when she would eat something, like it and I'd tell her it had one of her hated ingredients in it, especially with mushrooms.  She really doesn't like mushrooms because they're a fungus and that causes a mental block for her or something.  However just a week or so ago I cooked some fillets and had sliced shrooms as a side because I love some steak and shrooms and she tried the shrooms, on her own with no pressure from me and she said she really liked them.  Maybe we're making the turn.

A couple other things that we've done to help expand her pallet have been taking a couple cooking classes together those helped tremendously because she had no control over the menu and you always eat what you made.  Also her mother's and grandmother's cooking has gone really downhill lately with everything being overdone, dry and carb city..  She's said for the past couple years that she would much rather I do the cooking for holidays.  Having the baby helped because she wants him to try foods and not be as picky as she was/is so she's expanding so he can't use the Mommy doesn't eat it excuse.  She was also really paranoid about getting sick from food not cooked to proper temp, even though I would probe it prior to serving and cook to temp, so I got her a temp guideline magnet for the fridge for different proteins and her own Thermapen so she can check on her own and it's encouraged her to cook more.  It's kind of like on a cycle now, 3 weeks out of the month she's pretty good about how picky she's going to be and the other week we're back to her old ways.  

Had a girlfriend back in college that presented me with a sheet of paper, three columns, front AND back, of things she was allergic too.  After a few months, I was happy to add my name to the bottom of the list!!!!

I have the opposite.....I have a dog that will eat anything.

Glad I could help ya @aukerns08. Man, was that a bad decision on my part!

northGAcock said:

I have the opposite.....I have a dog that will eat anything.

my old german shepard would not eat hotdogs......if there was venison on the grill

I am very fortunate! When our boys were little, the rule was they had to eat a small "thank you" portion of everything served (to thank the cook). Today as teenagers they will eat almost anything and will try anything at least once. My wife and boys love the meals we make on our BGE.