Kai loves fruit and vegetables. As soon as he started eating solids, we introduced tropical fruits like mangoes and lychees, and he loved them! Now that we're back in the land where mangoes and lychees are not as common (or nearly as tasty), we make sure there are always at least two kinds of fruit in the house at all times. Kai's favorites are bananas, grapes, tangerines, and honeydews.
Aside from "finger veggies", such as carrots and broccoli, I also try to include dark green leafy vegetables in our diet. Kai would eat sauté spinach with garlic on its own, but he wouldn't eat cabbage unless I really cut it into "undetectable" pieces and mix it with something else.
This weekend, I took everything that was left in the fridge and made a pot of kale, carrots, and tofu soup with brown rice. Kai loved it, and I have to say, it was pretty damn good! I think kale is my new favorite vegetable. Unfortunately I don't know how else to prepare it other than putting it in a soup.
Kai has also been exposed to food from different countries. Since he's such an amazing eater and he loves rice and noodles, we usually don't have problems when eating out (Kai had Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mexican, and Italian). Tonight, however, he surprised us yet again with just how willing he is to try different food.
We had Indian food for dinner, and Kai had chicken saag on some rice. Even though we ordered "mild", the chicken saag still packed a bit of a punch. In the beginning, Kai happily shoved it all in his mouth and it didn't occur to us that it was in fact a little spicy (Bill and I both love spicy food so much that I'm sure most of our taste buds are dead at this point). As the dinner went on, Kai slowly grew weary of the burning sensation on his tongue. His brows tangled and he tried to "get the taste off" by wiping his tongue with his fingers. He then stuck his tongue out and began to breathe out of his mouth. At one point, his eyes watered and his face turned red.
I offered him some water and Naan, secretly worried that we might have scared him off of spicy food (which would be such a shame because spicy food is sooooo good).
Our amazing eater took a couple of swigs from his sippy cup and took a few bites of Naan and soldiered on. He finished the rest of the rice with chicken saag and started fighting with us for the papadum (that's another thing. How many 15-month-olds do you know that eat, or like, papadum?)
I love that Kai loves food 'cause food is meant to be a pleasure. With kids, though... Who knows how they'll turn out?! I can only hope that Kai will continue to be such an easy eater (and hopefully make healthy choices) throughout his life. If not... I take no responsibility and my future daughter-in-law had better learn how to sneak vegetables into meatballs or chocolate cakes. Ha!
6 comments:
Hey, I bet a chocolate flavored carrot cake would be yummy!
I felt the same way with Renee, she would eat anything! She loved loved loved veggies, and ate whatever we gave her. I couldn't get over what a wonderful eater she was. Juli always seemed to fight with Natalie over food, and constantly reminded me that once they hit about 4yrs.....it all changes. I never thought it would be that way, I mean, Renee preferred broccoli over bacon! Oh man was I in for a rude awakening! She is SO picky, and SO dramatic now! It started just a few months ago (right before turning that magical number....4). All of a sudden, she doesn't like potatoes, doesn't like carrots, freaks out over cabbage, gags with the first bite of most dinners, and forces herself to choke it down so she can have her Oreos. The girl is obsessed with Oreos. ;-) At this point we've made a rule, she *must* take at least 4 bites (because she's 4yrs old) of eat item (meat/veggie/etc) on her plate, then she's done. If she eats all of it she can have her Oreos! Sometimes I just have a talk with her before we eat (especially at gma & gpa's house) about being polite, not having a cow, and eating her 4 bites. Sometimes I have to feed her each bite, which might seem silly & make her look like a baby (and Adam doesn't like it), but if she'll eat her 4 bites then fine! I've very much learned how to 'pick your battles'. We do not want to sit at the table all night, and we don't want the poor kid to starve!
So, keep writing down what an awesome eater Kai is!! Remember this time, savour this time!! Hopefully he'll be different!! Just be warned (mom to mom)....watch out for that magic number!
I think a big difference too is NEVER introducing "kid food". NO JUNK FOOD. We actually didn't always struggle with Natalie. She was a great eater in the beginning. The problem was getting lazy with my meal planning/cooking and having too many chicken nugget nights. I'm sure a HUGE part of it too though is the temperament of the individual child.
I think if you continue to cook real meals every night, Kate, you could possibly bypass the rotten, mommy's-pulling-her-hair-out-again nightly battles at dinnertime.
What the h-? As if "the terrible 2" isn't a headache already, now here's "the magic 4"? Then they start elementary school at 6, and I'm sure that would present a whole new set of challenges too.
We've only been parents for 15... , 16 months as of today, so I'm taking every bit of advice other parents offer. Maybe boys will be different from girls (I saw Jordy eating raw green pepper with hummus and bread as snack)? All we can do is to keep offering him a variety of food and let him see how we enjoy them. I'm sure he'll develop his own preferences as he gets older. All I can hope for is that he'll discriminate against individual food items (for example, "I don't like eggplants, but I like spinach.") as opposed to preferring only one kind of food.
It may be naive if me to think that I can "mould" Kai's eating habits, but I'm sure gonna try. After all, "You are what you eat", and the importance of healthy diet really stuck with me during and after chemotherapy.
Juli, I meant at the time Renee was really eating good (big girl food). Around 15mo-2 1/2yr, which is when Natalie would have been right around 3 & 4....the magic number! ;-) Oh, and I totally agree. Try to avoid the funks! Chicken nuggets, Mac N Cheese, Quesadilla....they're all too easy to just fall back on, and pretty soon, that's all they want.
Keep it up Kate!
I am so jealous. Really. This is a blessing because this also means that you and Bill will be able to explore all the restaurants with Kai without having to worry "Is he going to starve?"
My kids are way older and Kai puts them ALL to shame. I am using "All" 'cause I have more than "two" kids... KWIM? LOL
I like Kale. Kate turned me onto it. In fact, in a way Kai turned me onto it too. How cool is that? My kid turned me onto something I'd never really eaten before because my wife turned him onto it.
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