How to Cultivate Love of Food and Cooking in Your Child
How does a child go from a kid who at age two decided diapers were too bulky so refused to wear them to a kid who watches chef’s on youtube describing culinary techniques?
In this episode I’ll share some personal victories as well as some tips I’ve picked up in my professional practice to get kids to love food and cooking.
Transcript of the Episode
Andrea Heyman 00:00 Hi friends, it's Andrea Heyman with another episode of Adventures In Feeding My Fam. How does a child go from a kid who at age two decided diapers were too bulky, so refuse to wear them to a kid who watches chefs on YouTube describing culinary techniques? In this episode, I'm going to share some very personal victories, as well as some tips I've picked up in my professional practice to get kids to love food and cooking. And I'm going to do that by telling you stories from my son Gabe's experience, and how he has gone from a youngster to a fellow whose birthday if you're listening to this on the date that this is released, it is actually his birthday today. So these are all of Gabe's stories. So it is almost the end of 2020. And for many of us, it has been one heck of a crazy year. Many of us are looking forward to 2021. And we just want to kind of erase 2020 and get on with a new fresh start in 2021. With a solid plan on how you're going to get your and your family's eating habits under control. Because especially if you're like me, all this extra time at home has kind of loosened the routines that you may have once had. If you've been listening to me for a while, you know, I've been a dietician for 25 years, and I've had enough experience to know that generic meal plans don't work, or they don't work long term anyway, because they're not tailored to your family. They're not tailored to your needs, to your routines, to your habits. And if you're not sure how to get started making those new routines and new habits for your family, then hop on a free 30 minute discovery call with me. And we can begin to talk about what your health goals are for yourself and for your family. Determine what you want from your nutrition and start to make a plan and how this can be your reality, your new reality. And I'll link that in the show notes. But you can find it at adventuresinfeedingmyfam.com/work-with-me. Adventures In Feeding My Fam is a weekly podcast discussing the challenges and fun around feeding your family healthy meals.
I'm Andrea Heyman and I've been a registered dietitian for over 25 years. So I know the importance of good nutrition. But I'm also a mom of three so I understand the challenges in that comes along with trying to make this happen. In this podcast, I'll share my tips, tricks and menus. But I'll also share the stories and food prep failures that come along the way to interview guests. We'll discuss family food traditions, how to strengthen bonds around the family table, as well as their favorite family recipes. There isn't one right way to feed your family. But there are countless stories. You can take bits and pieces and learn from all of them.
If you are listening to this episode today, it is December 7 when I released this episode, and it is my son's birthday. That's Gabe's birthday since I have two sons, but this is my second middle child and he is enjoying his birthday today. So let me describe Gabe a bit. He is actually a really interesting individual. I actually think all my kids are really interesting and they're all uniquely themselves. But Gabe is an interesting combination of things that you wouldn't necessarily think go together. He's actually a very strong athlete, play soccer and lacrosse. He is very insightful and will ask you kind of zinger of questions that just make you think and he's always done that and I'll ask you with these big brown, very inquisitive eyes, and he really makes you a better person for it. He is a lover of food and a phenomenal cook. And today I am going to tell you some stories of Gabe and how he has gotten to be such a phenomenal cook.
So I know a lot of you I've said this before on the podcast so a lot of you already know that one of the things I'm really proud about about my kids is that their adventure confident eaters, they definitely have their preferences. I would not call any of them picky, absolutely not picky. And they all genuinely enjoy cooking. For my daughter, it is baking. And my two sons like cooking more food food.
And so let's talk a little bit about those victories, and factors that have helped cultivate this love of food, and love of getting in there getting messy in the kitchen. So I have five tips that I think are really important tips and factors that help cultivate this love for cuisine.
So the first is really establishing positive mealtime culture. That includes having positive language about around food. So not allowing kids especially when they're younger, to say things like yucky or IU, or things like that, we want to keep the language really, really positive around food. And that just helps establish that, you know, you may have different food preferences, or you might not enjoy something, but somebody worked really hard to prepare this for you. And you should appreciate those efforts, and have that gratitude and appreciation for that. Next piece about establishing positive mealtime culture is don't short order cook. First of all, it takes more time, it's more hassle for you. But it doesn't teach your children to try the foods that might be a little bit out of their comfort zone. I've said this before, but it can take up to 20 tries of a specific food before your kids or anyone knows if they really like it or not make meal time relaxing and make mealtime a priority. And this is really, really challenging because I know that people have so many various schedules, sports, various activities and hobbies. But if at all, on any given night of the week, if you can find a small window of time that everyone or if not everyone in your family, the majority of everyone is available, make that the time that you guys eat together. So the time for dinner might vary and fluctuate. Depending on the night, I have definitely found that as my kids have gotten older, we have to be a little bit more flexible with that timing of the meal, when they were younger, we can be more much more regular because they weren't pulled in as many directions as they are now.
My second overall victory and tip is that I would allow my kids to make a mess in the kitchen. This includes letting them try new things. And letting them have some trust and freedom in the kitchen. However, you want to be careful because I can tell you gave when he was I don't know how old he was. He was younger. And he was just literally staring at this knife. And you know he was younger. So he was kind of impulsive. And he literally ran his thumb along then the the blade of the knife and of course he got cut and got hurt. And he was a little mad. He's like, Oh, that was so dumb. Like, why did I do that? I asked him why did you do that? And he said, I wanted to see if it was sharp, which for you know, a nine or 10 year old like he was seems like a normal thing to wonder. But he just was a little impulsive and didn't understand that there was going to be a consequence to finding out just how sharp that knife was. But I still think it's so important to give them the flexibility to be messy in the kitchen and accept that there will be messes and hopefully not too many injuries.
Similar to making a mess is let your kids experiment in the kitchen. I remember once my son went to his friend Jacobs house and my friend when I came to pick Gabe up my friend met me and said I cannot believe it. But Gabe cooked you know the the boys were looking for something to do. And he said let's make onion rings. And they proceeded to make onion rings together and my friend just couldn't fathom that. First of all, Gabe was comfortable enough in the kitchen to do that, but thought that that would be a fun activity. And I guess the boys did. They have fun, they really enjoyed it. Another part of experimentation is allowing them their interests to take them where they want to go. So I remember a lot of times, but in particular once walking into gabes room, and he's watching a video, and I asked him, Are you watching YouTube? And I'm like, Oh, great, what, what could he be getting into here? So I asked him what the YouTube video was about. And he says, it's about brining meat. And that was like, oh, okay, you go ahead and watch that, because that's a heck of a lot better than a lot of other things that are out there on YouTube. And I think some of this experimentation, results in kids being a lot more comfortable to eat. Once Gabe and I went to visit, my dear friend Maria, who lives in Chicago, and we went to this restaurant, the fronteira grill, so if you guys have never been there is phenomenal. And gave ordered, like really exotic things. And I think he was 12 at the time. So Maria looked at him, and he said, Gabe, you are not afraid to eat. And it's true. Like he's not afraid to try new things. And I think that's because he's been given flexibility to try and experiment in the kitchen.
All right. Another key factor that I think is attributed to my kids being pretty comfortable in the kitchen and loving food is that I involve them in meal planning. Oftentimes, when I am doing weekly meal planning, I will ask them what they want to have for dinner one night of the upcoming week. Now, really, if I'm being honest, the initial answer is, I don't know, whatever. It's okay. I don't care. But I don't take that for an answer. I really dig down and say, what really do you want to eat here? But I also in the early days, I use it as a teaching tool so that the kids can learn about nutrition, and what makes a healthy meal. So let's say the response was mac and cheese. Okay, well, we can have mac and cheese for dinner. But how do we balance that? And what do we pair that with to make it a nutritious, balanced meal. So I'm using that as a kind of as a tool to teach what I want them to take home as healthy, balanced eating habits.
And then my final piece, and I've got a really funny story that goes along with this is that really limit exposure to junk food and snack food that is out there. food manufacturers literally do tons of research to determine the most addictive, palatable, flavor and texture and mouthfeel of a snack food to make it addicting and appealing to the consumer. They're not interested in nutrition, or ensuring that your children have healthy snacks, the motivation is really selling. And if they can get you hooked on Doritos, they're going to do it. So limit the amount of junk and snack foods that are in your house. I can tell you once when Gabe was five years old, I remember he had a friend of his over at the house. They were playing downstairs and I kind of overheard them talking. And the one said to Gabe, hey, let's get a snack. And then Gabe said, Sure, sure, we can get a snack. And then the friend said, How about Cheetos? And gabe's response was hilarious. It was he was aghast. He was like, no way we don't have that my mom's a dietitian. And I have to say just from a mom perspective and also from a dietitian perspective, that was like really proud moment cuz he just was like no way we would never have that kind of thing in our home.
Alright, so I hope these five little areas can really help you start to cultivate joy of food. cultivate your kids being more adventurous eaters if that's something that you want to work on, and teach them the joy of creating food and developing new palette. It's and flavors and recipes that they can share with the rest of the family now, but also as they age and get older, and become adults and independent, competent humans. So I really hope you liked this episode. If you did, it would mean a lot if you took a minute to leave me a review and share this podcast. That's so that other busy moms can benefit from what we're talking about here. And if you want to go a little bit deeper, we are discussing some of the topics we talk about here in the podcast over in the Facebook group. That is also called adventures and feeding my fam. You can also find me on Instagram at adventures and feeding my fam. And remember those discovery calls I am here for you. If you're having trouble, then get yourself one of those free calls. And we can work out whatever challenge you're having as it relates to feeding your fam. Until next time, take care