Alison Curtis: My greatest victory? Getting a picky eater to eat a banana
Pic: Marc O'Sullivan
My daughter Joan, who is 10, has always been a picky eater with three extra stomachs for the sweet stuff. I believe it is called karma, as one of my frequently occurring memories of my childhood is my parents begging me to eat one more piece of carrot or one more piece of chicken.
When she was very young Joan did eat well. I was lucky she liked a huge range of vegetables and a pretty good selection of fruits but around the age of four things really changed.
She stopped liking some of the old reliables like bananas, oranges and broccoli, things she once had almost daily. I persisted in putting them on her plate and gradually I gave up on those three, which I probably shouldn’t have.
Fast forward a few more years and her diet got even more restrictive. She stopped liking potatoes (is she insane?!) unless they were mashed, also she no longer liked cheese (how is she my child?) and went off meat.
I appreciate meat in her diet is a tricky one as I have been a vegetarian since I was 14 so she has never seen me eat it. I do prepare it and obviously don’t make comments on anyone eating meat. But she has slowly just decided that if it isn’t for me then maybe it isn’t for her.
I would worry about her getting a balanced diet without meat. I manage that by supplementing it with all sorts of other protein sources that she hasn’t acquired a taste for yet like chickpeas, beans and lentils.
So I do encourage her to still have fish and chicken when it is being cooked for dinner.
I know I am far from alone in this and most parents have at least one picky eater in the family. And most of us find it a daily chore to encourage our kids to eat a bigger and better variety of foods.
With the return of school a few weeks ago I thought a lot about how to incorporate new and good foods into Joan’s daily diet. With each shop I would include something new that I was hoping she would like.
Some of the hits I was delighted about was that Joan started to like grapes again and one day I nearly fainted when she walked by the fruit bowl and picked up a banana without encouragement.
Another joy to me was that she finally accepted porridge as a possibility. I could have cried when she finished her first bowl and asked for it again the next day. It quickly became the after school staple which I was delighted about. Of course, we add a good dollop of maple syrup and she loves apples mixed in.
Then just when I couldn’t be happier about our progress Joan said she would try Greek yogurt and granola together. She has always gone for one other kind of yoghurt so this was music to my ears and it became the post-dinner dish if her tummy was still rumbling.
Other wins have been a lovely apple scone recipe and homemade flapjacks that she is inhaling and they make for perfect after school snacks.
With our children and their diets, it really is trial and error as well as persistence on our part as parents. Another big piece of the puzzle for me was only having available in the house things I am happy for her to be eating.
I know picky eating can break our hearts but we have to just keep offering the good stuff to them. Then, just like a switch, one day they will change and start to enjoy a wider variety of good foods and we can claim the victory - but quietly of course.
