Over the summer, my 11-year-old (and very picky) daughter announced that she’d become a vegetarian. Except for bacon. She’d still eat bacon. I laughed at the irony. I cried at her ever-expanding-pickiness. And, naturally, I had to tweet about it.
My 11-year-old declared herself a vegetarian. Except for bacon. Nothing like a magical pork product to help you compromise your convictions.
— Foxy Wine Pocket (@FoxyWinePocket) July 12, 2014
This tweet led to a pretty humorous discussion with my Twitter pal, Brian. (He writes a blog, Brian’s Beer Googles, that you really should check out. Mmmmm… BEER.) Apparently, he’s a lot like my daughter:
@FoxyWinePocket @KateWhineHall I’m a vegetarian too. Except for bacon. And ham. And pork chops, steak, prime rib, burgers….. — Brian Vandenbroek (@BVandenbroek) July 12, 2014
Well, except for the fact that he’s nothing like my daughter minus the bacon connection. (Bacon: Bridging folks together… Everywhere… Forever and ever… Amen.) And clearly he’s not as picky as my daughter. I agreed with him and added lamb chops and chicken to our list. Because I really love meat. (That’s what she said.) But, mid-tweet it occurred to me that chicken is more like a vegetable than real meat. It’s far too healthy and lean to be meat, and it is so bland and omnipresent. Not like a REAL meat at all. So I posed the question back to Brian:
@BVandenbroek @KateWhineHall And lamb chops. And chicken… Oh wait. Chicken’s a vegetable, right?
— Foxy Wine Pocket (@FoxyWinePocket) July 12, 2014
Naturally Brian agreed with me. And then my friend Kate from Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine… chimed in (because we’d been blowing up her phone with Twitter notifications—totally her fault for retweeting me [please don’t stop retweeting me, Kate]), and all three of us declared chicken a vegetable.
@BVandenbroek @FoxyWinePocket I had to come see what all these notifications popping up on my phone were about. Yes, chicken is a vegetable.
— AnotherBottleofWhine (@KateWhineHall) July 12, 2014
Congratulations, chicken! You are now a vegetable. So now millions more people can enjoy your not-really-palatable-until-you-add-some-serious-spice flavor. Well, millions of people except for my vegetarian-with-bacon-benefits daughter. Who won’t eat chicken. Ever.
And that brings me back to the point of my story: my very picky daughter.
Once upon a time (when she was a baby), my daughter ate most things that we gave to her. Then she did the typical toddler thing and became very selective about what she ate. Alarmed, I talked to our pediatrician who told me NOT to turn food into a battle, especially with a girl because that can lead to eating disorders. She promised me my daughter would come around.
That was about 8 years ago. I’m still waiting for her to come around.
Additionally, about 5 years ago, she was diagnosed with some sensory issues, which means she’s very sensitive to textures (including food textures). What does that really mean, you ask? That really means she vomits whenever she tries to eat a grape or a blueberry or a bean or anything slightly firm on the outside but mushy on the inside (plus 13,589,453 other textures).
So her list of acceptable foods was already pretty narrow. Then she had to go get some “convictions” and become a vegetarian. And now she won’t eat chicken, pork, beef, or seafood either. (Not that she ate too many of those to begin with, but at least she ate some of them.)
Her favorite foods include:
- Pasta with butter and parmesan (It must be freshly grated parm—none of that canned crap.)
- Rice with parmesan (NO BUTTER!! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WOULD PUT BUTTER ON RICE!!)
- Cheese pizza (Also, from time to time, pepperoni is a vegetable. Apparently.)
- Grilled cheese (Only on sourdough and with American cheese because that crap her parents eat is sub-par. Bonus points if her Grandma makes it.)
- Cereal (There might be 3 or 4 different ones she’ll eat.)
- Waffles (Eggo Homestyle. Not whatever waffles you’re serving, I’m sure.)
- Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (Sourdough, creamy peanut butter, and marionberry jam only from Oregon, thankyouverymuch.)
- Pancakes with 100% Grade A maple syrup (Made by Dad, and Dad only. No other pancake will do.)
- Any sweet delicacy, foreign or domestic, including ice cream, chocolate, cookies, cake, doughnuts, candy, pudding, brownies, fudge, marshmallows, s’mores, gum, lollipops, etc.
There are other foods that she will eat, but the list above represents her favorites. The list of foods she won’t eat is way too long to bother. That would be like trying to catalog all of the stars in Milky Way galaxy. (She will eat Milky Way candy bars though.)
You can give me all of the advice that you want. You can tell me it’s my fault. And tell me to let her go hungry. And to have her cook with me. And shop with me. And shove it down her throat. And blah, blah, blah, blah. Believe me, I’ve tried it all. And I will continue to try it all some more. But I’m not going to make it a battle. I’m not going to force her to eat. She’ll come around when she comes around.
And I firmly do believe that. She WILL come around eventually. Do you know how I know? Because something will be coming along very soon that will change everything…
A BOY.
47 Responses
Your post totally reminds me of my friend’s daughter. She literally is EXACTLY the same way & eats EXACTLY the things you listed.
Someone told her there’s an actual for term for it (forgive me for coming here w/out full knowledge of said term) but there are kids who will ONLY eat ‘white’ foods.
Pizza of course isn’t totally white but you know what I mean, right?
Good luck w/that, super frustrating I’m sure. My friend has to bring either a sandwich or waffles/pancakes w/her when they go out to eat as a family. Her son however can be found head first in the guacamole bowl!
Fortunately she’s old enough to pack her own food to eat if we are going somewhere that doesn’t server one of the above food items. The self-sufficiency makes it slightly less frustrating. 🙂
She will come around since I did too. At one point in my life I only ate hot dogs, peanut butter and apple butter sandwiches (other jellies are disgusting), and plain hamburgers. Eventually I expanded to some other things, including pasta with sauce. But when my wife met me, all I ate at the dining hall at UCD was plain hamburgers and some lettuce.
Now I’ll eat almost anything. So you only have 12 more years to wait! Good luck!
I was pretty picky too as a child. (I still ate more than she does.) And now I’m counting down the years until she can make her dietary demands at the college dining hall. 😉
This sounds like my son! He’s 5 and won’t eat most foods- he survives on peanut butter- smooth only (no jelly- cuz, “that’s gross”) hard boiled eggs (white only, no yellow “gross”) and Kraft mac n’ cheese- only the brand name will do- tried to sub the Target brand once and he gagged when he ate it. He won’t eat any vegetables, unless it’s in chicken soup- but I have to strain out everything but the noodles and carrots in the soup- God forbid he ate some chunks of chicken or a piece of celery in the soup! The horror!! He refuses to eat most fried items (I guess that’s not SO bad, but…) because he hates to eat anything “crunchy”. So that leaves out a lot of kid foods like French fries and Chicken Nuggets. You daughter’s list of foods is actually a long one compared to my son’s very limited palate- I’d love it if he wanted to be vegetarian, at least he’d eat a vegetable. LOL. I hope he grows out of this it drives everyone nuts.
Maybe I should clarify: she’s a carb-loving vegetarian. Carrots and lettuce are about the only vegetables she eats.
Hahaha! This reminds ne so much of my daughter. When she decided that she was vegetarian at age 10 ( all 4 of my kids had a vegetarian phase) Pepperoni was ok to eat because “it didn’t have a face”.
I hate to tell you though that she never really grew out if it. She is now 32 and vegan. Seriousy? No cheese? We’re in Wisconsin. I am sure that is a mortal sin. She did give up being RAW though. That was really painful. What saves us is that she lives in Boston and cooks for herself. Holidays are challenging. Ever eat tofurkey?
Cathy
Ps: your blog rocks! Thank you!
I actually like tofu, but my daughter won’t touch the stuff. I can’t believe she said no to cheese in Wisconsin. And, man, I could not live without cheese. Okay, I could, but…
Thank you for the kind words, Cathy! xo
Your daughter sounds like my nephew. He has a list of about 5 things he will eat. One day, my niece told my sister…you know, I think it’s weird to eat dead animals, mom.
My nephew looks at my sister and shouts YOU’VE BEEN FEEDING ME DEAD ANIMALS??? EVEN CHICKEN???
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! We had one of those moments too. My son paused… and then kept eating his chicken.
My now 16 yr old son was a very picky child, and his tastes were quite similar to your daughter. I dealt the best I could, and have found as a teen who is always hungry – he eats way more variety than he used to (although he is very vocal when items on his plate aren’t his top choice, he scarfs them down). Plus girls came along and he didn’t want to appear wimpy or childish in front of them when offered things like “pasta” or “vegetables”. She won’t starve, and she will eventually eat more variety someday!
Yep. She’s still growing. She’s already 5’5″ at 11–so the peanut butter and carbs must be working. And, thank you, for giving me hope.
I us like you have been with my 10 yr….oh excuse me almost 11…little man. He is the worst! Not to me, but to everyone else….spaghetti -‘- only mom’s. Veggies — only corn and only if mom makes it. I don’t know how that child survives. 🙂
Sometimes I don’t know how she keeps growing. Thank goodness for multi-vitamins.
Been there. Done that. But then magically at around age 16, she started expanding her repertoire. She got interested in cooking, and thus eating, new things. Now her diet is broader than mine (she made me try rabbit over the summer. Rabbit!)
Alright, Cassandra, that means I’ve only got 5 more years. I’m holding you to that. Although I don’t think she’ll ever try rabbit…
My younger son, now 31, was like this until he was 16. Fish fingers, sausages, not much else. Now he’s a foodie! Patience my dear, and think of the savings from not having to buy caviar and frogs legs.
That, and I’m keeping the bread, pasta, and peanut butter markets in business!
Now I want sausage.
I thought my youngest was picky. I can see where you would categorize chicken as a vegetable. I eat a ton of chicken so I must be a vegetarian too!
I eat a ton of chicken too. I might be a vegetarian if it weren’t for all of the meat.
They don’t all grow out of it. I have a family of cousins who are the worst eaters I’ve ever seen. One eats only white food (she’s pushing 60), her brother, also a very picky eater, had certain TIMES he eats. Because. Any family dinner has to start at 4:30, because he won’t eat after 5:00. (And, although I am not a picky eater, I don’t eat cow. And won’t eat egg yolks. But that is about it for me.)
Yeah, I hear you, I’ve got a family member who eats like a 2-year-old too. I’m selective in that I have my preferences, but the only thing I refuse to eat is a raw tomato.
I feel your pain. Brennan is also incredibly picky. Except she won’t even eat PB&J. What weirdo doesn’t even like that?! She does, however, expect to eat bologna sandwiches (with waaaay too much mustard that she INSISTS on putting on by herself) for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. Throw in some chips and ANYTHING sweet and she is set. ugh. The only “vegetable” she eats is spaghetti with meat sauce. That counts, right?
Tomato sauce (with meat) totally counts as a vegetable. (I puree my onion/carrot/celery mixture in the sauce to get more veggies in.) But, yeah, I don’t get the PB&J thing. I could live on those.
Your comment reminds me of the fried bologna sandwiches I used to eat as a kid. Except with ketchup. I NEVER would have touched mustard back then. (Now it’s the opposite.)
Our boys have a veto list of 5 foods. We don’t fight them on it, but we don’t cater to it.
Oh, you don’t like the zucchini in the stir fry?
Is it on your list?
No?
Eat it.
A veto list is a very good idea. Wouldn’t work with this one, but it’s a very good idea.
This is not advice… but after we bought a panini maker our kids throw everything in their sandwiches and I’m not stopping them.
I had no idea that panini presses were for anything but bacon. 😉
(Formerly known as commenter “Smargie”)
Not that this is a contest, but I fall somewhere between you and NS and BOTH of my kids are like that. I think you are on the right track with that glimmer of hope you are probably clutching desperately to. My daughter Julia, who is now 15, is s l o w l y starting to expand her palate ever so slightly. We can actually drive through Taco Bell now and get her a burrito with grilled chicken and white rice only. This is somewhat of a hollow victory though, because no one else in the family likes Taco Bell and we usually have to park and go back inside anyway after she checks said burrito and finds either a shred of cheese or something slightly but terrifyingly red.
So, I can confirm for you that there is, indeed, hope. Boys help, but her female adolescent conformist friends have helped more by shaming her for her unsophisticated culinary ways. Yay!
So far the peer pressure from girlfriends hasn’t helped too much. I’m still holding out for the boy. And now I want a TB bean burrito (the only thing I eat there, really).
I have a kid who is a super picky eater (the other three are on the spectrum between sort of picky, and “Can I have more of everything?”). There are two things I remind myself of every time I want to hang myself with a dishtowel.
First is that it’s a fact that our palates change about every 7 years. So what you hated at 7, you might love at 14 or 21. It’s not an exact science–not like on their 7th birthday they will suddenly eat something they’ve been refusing for the last six years and 364 days, but approximately ever 7 years, there’s a change. Which explains all the people (like me) who were SUPER picky as children, and then gradually started to broaden their horizons.
Second, I read somewhere that the son of Ruth Reichel–former NYT restaurant critic and editor of Gourmet magazine–would eat two foods as a child. TWO. And when I say “as a child” I mean until he was like 17 or something. One of them was chicken, I think the other may have been plain pasta. She wrote about it somewhere and I read it ages ago. When my kid turns down something perfectly delicious, I think, “At least he’ll eat more than chicken and plain pasta.”
Thank you. That helps. *repeats “at least she’ll eat more than chicken and plain pasta…”* Except not the chicken part. 😉
I’m with qwertygirl on this one, and you. You don’t need any advice as you’ve made the right choice not to make a battle out of it. I was a super picky child too, and as my wasteline will attest, I’m not so picky anymore. Sure, there are a couple things I’ve never changed my mind about and it is a little bit of the same texture sensitivity your daughter has. I will not eat raw tomatoes, or cooked ones for that matter, unless they are sauce, and never shall a bean of any kind pass these lips. I love Wendy’s chili, but I will order a large and pick every single bean out before I eat it. That’s just my thing, but I made it to the ripe young age of 40 something and haven’t suffered for it.
She’ll be just fine. My brother used to just eat buttered pasta with Parmesan and he grew up to be one hell of a cook and makes the best damn spaghetti sauce you ever ate!
See? You people are lovely–giving me hope and all. I was pretty picky too, but I was forced to eat the food. So that’s not something I wanted to do. And… I WON’T TOUCH RAW TOMATOES EITHER!!! Disgusting. But I do love beans.
My ex was like this – and passed along his food hang-ups to our daughter. Texture is a huge thing for her. When she was small, I could sometimes disguise veggies and such in smoothies or even in delicious baked goods. She is now onto my tricks.
I hate it when they catch on to our tricks!
EPIC TO THE FKKN MAX! Ha! My son used to hate cheese. NO FREAKIN CHEESE PLEASE ON ANYTHING…YUCK…unless it was a hamburger. Maybe. Anything else? Forget it! Oh but now that he’s 17 he’s so astounded that I would even dare ask if he wants cheese! Of course MOM I WANT CHEESE! When I have I ever NOT wanted cheese. Oh dear baby Jesus. Loved this piece!
Thank you for the kind words! Also, you’re giving me even more hope. I need that for sure.
By the way…shared, shared and shared again on all my pages and in my groups. Love it. Did I already say that?
Awwww, thank you, Misty! I really appreciate it! xoxo
This is exactly my son’s list. EXACTLY.
Except he won’t eat the pasta with parm at my house. Siiiiiiiigh…
My oldest son has the same list as your daughter. One time, when he was about four or five, he wouldn’t eat the vegetables and rice I made for him. I told him if he didn’t eat them for dinner then he would have them for breakfast. He wouldn’t eat them for breakfast. So, then I told him he could eat them for lunch – he had no food since lunch the next day. I took the kids to McD’s and put his vegetables and rice in front of him and told him he could eat that THEN get something from McD’s. He wouldn’t eat it. At dinner that night, he still wouldn’t eat it. So at bedtime he was so hungry that he threw up. At that point, I called the pediatrician and he said not to battle with him. Crap! I gave him a moo-toob and then put him in bed. I felt like he won. At this point (age 10, as of today), he still hates all vegetables and fruit, but will push them down when required. He, literally, gags on the vegetables EVERY night. But he gets them down.
Who said parenting wasn’t fun?!!
When Fruit Loop #1 was a baby, I used to say he was a fruitatarian who accepted dairy on alternate Tuesdays. Preach, Foxy….
I was exactly like this as a child… actually until I was 18. My mom food battled with me for years and it only made me worse. After having me tested for anemia five times (I never had it), she gave me up and let me be. I happily survived on plain spaghetti and macaroni and cheese for the duration of my childhood. Then I went to college, lived in a dorm room, and realized I would starve and have limited social interaction if I didn’t learn how to like at least one thing at the various restaurants my friends frequented. To this day (I’m now 30), I have never eaten a hamburger or a steak, and macaroni and cheese is still my favorite food (the organic kind – I am a grown-up after all), but I can also go to dinner anywhere and enjoy something on the menu. Great post!
Working in the Produce industry,we always had fresh fruits and vegetables in our house. Out of my 3 kids, the middle one always wanted his veggies,the other 2… not as excited about the veg. My daughter who is the youngest was the pickiest of all the kids. She too was not one for expanding her tastes.Although she is 19 now and has grown up,she didn’t suffer any by her choices. If the chicken thing works…..go for it