I definitely make my daughter try everything. At least 3 bites! She's not a picky eater, so it usually isn't a problem. However, if she doesn't like it, I don't force her to eat it or hide it somewhere. However, I avoid making foods she doesn't like or I make her a substitute. But we do this vise versa. I have Salmon & she loves it & so does my husband. I make it for them, but I make myself something else instead.

My parents never made us eat anything we didn't like. I wasn't picky but as a child I didn't care for tunafish casserole (I do now, but Angie doesn't so we don't have it) so my mom would make me a hot dog or can of chili instead.

Now as for my family, my kids never liked ham ~ as toddlers they would spit it out and say "PFFFT..FAT!" Now this is when they didn't know what fat was! I found out if I fried it then it was OK. At 23 and 25, they are still not big on ham, unless it is a spiral cut from Costco. My step-daughter was big on "I don't like it" before she even knew what the dish was when she was young...got through that stage finally.

I love these stories... I remember being about 6 or 7 and mom and dad wanted me to eat spinach. Not yummy fresh green spinach but the black goo in a can spinach (still won't eat it and you can't make me! )... well I was NOT having it, and I was super picky most of the time anyway.. I guess I was feeling sassy because I loaded up my fork and aimed it at my dad, who sort of laughed and said "oh, you wouldn't dare..."
Well, I did dare and it splattered right onto his shirt sleeve, and then I saw dad become the maddest he's ever been and I went to my room for the night. *LOL*
I wonder if he remembers that.... hmm...

hehe i would cut up the food in tiny peices put it in the back of my mouth and swallow it like pills gagging the whole time until i was excused from the table. (dramatic child, wasnt it?)

i also was known for peeling pb&j sandwiches apart and sticking them to the bottom of the table so it looked like it was gone... i was usually back outside playing by the time the de-stuck and fell....

hehehe

Hahaha, you didn't like pb&j sandwiches?! I love them. That's more the sort of thing I would request when I didn't like what we were having.

I vividly remember the one and only time my mother was forceful with me sitting at the table to finish my meal. I don't know how long we were there for (I know it felt like hours) but I just couldn't finish it. It was sort of "Hamburger Helper" thing that I've never seen in my house since, and I never heard of it before that one fateful day. I was quite a drama queen about it, too.

I love all the stories in this thread, especially the one about the cabbage, too funny! :lol:

My oldest sister used to babysit us younger kids while my parents were working. One day she made me "runny" eggs. I refused to eat them and she insisted I had to eat them. So, I added grape jelly to them and they turned green. I told her the eggs were bad and I couldn't eat them. She knew what I'd done and sat there and forced me to eat them.

It wasn't much later that I was babysitting her young daughter and had fixed her some tomato soup. She refused to eat the soup and poured her kool-aid into it. I sat there and made her eat it anyway. My sister has always accused me of being intentionally cruel to her DD just as payback for her making me eat those green eggs. LOL.

I was definitely forced to eat foods I didn't like - but to be fair, I didn't like much and I had a very long phase of "i don't like that" before tasting things. One thing I hated as a child was pork chops, I have no idea why because I love them now. Whenever my mom would serve pork chops, I would surprise her by offering to help set the table, and I would always give myself a glass of milk in an opaque orange plastic cup.

I would put a bite of the pork chop in my mouth, pretend like I was chewing it, then put the orange cup full of milk up to my lips and spit the meat into it. (God, how disgusting.)

When I was "done" - and boy was my mom proud of me - I'd go empty the milk (i never drank any!!!) down the sink drain, along with all the meat. Nobody cared if I drank the milk so they never paid attention to how much I started with or was left with. It LOOKED like I was drinking it, and it looked like I was eating the meat.

It wasn't until just a couple of years ago that I confessed to my mom that I used to do that. At first she was horrified, but then couldn't stop laughing. She said I was the most stubborn kid ever.

My grandparents were immigrants and my parents liked them, and so we ate organ meat when I was growing up - in the 50s, this was considered healthy. [I must admit, I still like sweetbreads, but I'm not sure I trust the quality as much anymore]
So, liver was a regular item in our house. My mother served calves' liver, soaked in milk, about once a month.
Well, when we got our cat, he thought he'd died and gone to feline heaven.
He was instantly roaming from lap to lap.
I'll never forget my father announcing in stern tones that we do NOT feed the cat from the table, as he carefully cut up the liver and split the pieces between him and the cat.

Haha! What a great thread!

Here is my story...
I was probably 5 at the time, and my family and I had sat down for dinner, and I would not eat! My mom was stern with me and said, "if you don't eat whats on your plate, you're going to have to live with the consequences..."

and I replied, "WHO are the consequences?"

Haha, I guess I didn't care if I had to live with them, I just wanted to know who they were??!

These stories are so funny!

I was a pretty picky child. Textures bothered me like OJ w/pulp in it, apple sauce "little chunks", even jello yuck. I had a babysitter that used to make me eat Hamburger Helper which I hated.

My Dad loved canned green and lima beans and I still can't stand them or most canned veggies. One night I sat at the table for hours staring at the lima beans and I could hear my mom and him arguing about it in the other room. By the way, we lived in California but my Dad was born in Kentucky and raised by my very southern Kentucky grandmother. He came in so mad that I was still sitting there being so stubborn and demanded that I take a bite. By this time the lima beans were cold and even more disgusting so when I took the bite I gagged very dramatically and then threw up all over my plate. When my mom walked in and saw my Dad and I staring at each other in horror and saw what had happened, she looked very smug and mumbled something like, "I told you so" to my Dad. All my Dad said was, "Oh my God, honey, go to bed." I gladly went to bed (as it was already bedtime by now) and I don't remember him ever making me eat anything I didn't like after that.

My 9 yr old son is sooooo picky and I try to be sympathetic to it since I was picky too. Even as a baby he didn't like most green vegetables. So I cook very simply most nights. He likes his veggies raw and I'm okay with that but I do make him eat them otherwise he would never touch a vegetable. I can tell when he absolutely can't stand it or if he can tolerate. So I usually give him a little bowl of raw veggies or plain salad with lemon wedges while I'm cooking dinner and this saves the hassle at the table and then he's already gotten them out of the way and won't say "I'm full" after eating everything but the veggies.

:lol3: :D hahahaha

I can't stand certain extures either, Jelly (jello) is the worst for me, but anything slimy or pastey (like mylanta) I gag and just can't seem to swallow.

My DD was always a finicky eater, and I remember one night she was chucking a raggie at the table in her refusal to eat peas. Her father spooned a heap into her mouth and held her mouth closed for a few seconds when she gagged and promptly threw up all over him. LOL I've never put peas on her plate since. (but for some reason she eats them raw)

I had to sit at the table until I cleaned my plate or bedtime rolled around...bed rolled around quite often unless I could get the dog to eat it but he was pickier than I was (my nemesis was shepherd's pie with no seasoning )

I havent had much luck with even a one bite rule with dd, I'm trying to follow the "how to get your kids to eat, but not too much"

Good luck, ennay. I know it is hard to get the kids to try new things, but I am thankful that I didn't cave into their "I don't like it" banter. Sure there are a few things that the kids don't like and they have tried them, so I don't force those at all. After all, there are things that I don't like either!!!

Warning, Food Item Mentioned Below
Funny story, while visiting my sister in Dallas, she took us all to Krispy Kreme (we'd never heard of them). DS was about 3. We watched the doughnuts roll off the assembly line and a worker handed one each to DD and DS. DS tried to give it to me saying "I don't like it." I told him he had never had one and he had to try it before he could decide he did or didn't like it. You can imagine the outcome~four bites later he wanted another!! As he grew up, I just had to remind him of this event and he was more likely to try new foods.