Silly food presentation: what do you do? Talk amongst yourselves.

Let's start with Duane's example:

This hardly counts as a hack but I thought you'd find it cute. We're trying to get better at enforcing the "nobody gets down from the dinner table, nobody has dessert until everybody is finished with their dinner" rule in the house, which means attention must be paid to the two year-old boy.

I'm on duty and am told, "Get your son to eat his carrots." On his plate are baby carrots, ziti, and a few other things. Creativity strikes, and I stick the baby carrots in the ziti. They look like little orange hot dogs. Not only does the little guy go crazy for them (he immediately starts trying to make his own), but my 6 year-old daughters gets in on the act and starts making them as well. I have no idea how it tasted, but they didn't seem to care :).

Okay. Here's one of those times when one of my abstract parenting philosophies conflicts with real-life kid-raising. I've always felt that one shouldn't resort to presentation antics in order to get kids to eat. Food is nourishment, not entertainment. Smiley face pizzas? Please.

However.

I have two super-finicky kids. Who only eat the "plain" versions of what I prepare for dinner. Who reject entire categories of food. So who do you think has stuck steamed broccoli spears into a bed of rice and presenting them as "baby trees?"

Another example: my kids used to only eat plain spaghetti until my husband copped a fake Italian accent, started singing fake opera while cooking, and dubbed his basic tomato/basil preparation "Daddy's Special Sauce." The kids devoured it and declared it "the best meal they'd ever had."

I realize that this discussion assumes that one should try to convince one's kids to eat. That assumption is questionable; many, including Ellen Satter, who I greatly respect, suggest that you should simply put the food on the table and then let the kids take it from there. For the purposes of this conversation, however, let's just go down this road a bit farther.

So. Tell us the silly, ridiculous, bizarre or otherwise entertaining ways you've marketed food to your kids. I'm not talking Mickey Mouse pancakes here (because who doesn't like pancakes?); I'm looking for the crazy-measures-to-get-kids-to-eat stuff.

Here's what my Twitter buddies came up with:

jenlicata: "We've told them that certain foods will make them make certain noises (like eating this bean will make you baa like a sheep)."
Flippee: "Give them a straw for thin food such as soup, yogurt, etc."
MayberryMom: Creates a face out of whatever's on the plate. (Piles of black beans for eyes, ketchup for a mouth, etc.)
kiddio: Calls the plum pits "dinosaur eggs."
robnh: Offers to "smash" any rejected food. Then her daughter will eat it. Hm. A texture thing maybe?
leeanthro: Finds everything gets eaten when using chopsticks.

Related: Creative ways to present unfamiliar foods

Comments

[amy]

Actually, my daughter (4y) doesn't like pancakes. (Too soft, too chewy.) So my attempt at getting her to even interact with pancakes began at trying to make them smaller and with crispier edges.

I got a Wilton cake decorator squeezy bottle and cut the opening a little larger. Then I thin the batter down a bit, and with that, I can make small shapes and designs. My daughter's favorite is when I make letters, which turn out about 1.5-2" tall. They are crispy on the edges and last a while on the plate if she's playing with them. She has yet to eat one, but she will in time.

This method also gives me a way to let her make the pancakes, because she can stand on a stool at the electric griddle and squeeze out her own designs.

[J]

Last week my 2 year old daughter suddenly refused to eat peas. My husband lined them up on her plate and for every pea she ate, she got to feed one to the dog. She ate all of hers and then asked for more.

[Allen K.]

Calvin: "NO!!!"
Calvin's father: "Good thinking, Calvin. It's toxic waste, and will turn you into a mutant."
Calvin: NOM NOM RUMFL SCROMPF NOM NOM
Calvin's mother: "There MUST be some other way of getting him to eat!"
+
Calvin: "Ahh... I can feel it working..."

[Joyous]

"Food is nourishment, not entertainment?" What, you've never eaten fondue? Fruit flambé? Heck, even radish roses. Why shouldn't food be fun?

My mom used to cut strips of meat off pork chops and call them "porklets." It was all about the name. :)

[Christine]

Everything looks good in color! Take a hint from green eggs and ham, and get to know your food coloring. Make blue noodles, pink pancakes,and green milk.

[Amy]

Heh - I made the picture for my girls for breakfast this morning,
with the heart shaped cut out and everything. We call it "egg in a nest."

They didn't eat it.

Amy @ http://prettybabies.blogspot.com

[Duane]

Actually I'm with joyous -- food is for more than just nourishment, otherwise we'd all be eating plain tofu and taking vitamins. Eating is supposed to be a multi sensory experience that you actually enjoy. That certainly doesn't mean food fights every night, but there's certainly room for creativity. Did this Ellen person never make airplane noises while feeding the baby? At what age, pray tell, must one stop enjoying their food and just shut up and eat?

Another simple trick that works wonders with the 2yr old, by the way, is to put his food on my fork and pretend I'm going to eat it, and then look flabbergasted when he bites it back off. Works well with finger food, too, provided that you pretend like he has bitten your finger. Every single time. You'd think the boy would tire of it.
:)

[Parent Hacks Editor]

Heh. My stern FOOD IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT was exaggerated for effect -- I'm not really that much of a stickler. For example, last year I bought a box of Halloween-themed Apple Jacks with Eyeball Marshmallows because, well, because it was so...over the top. Eyeball marshmallows? We were plenty entertained.

[Uly]

I don't do "tricks to get kids to eat", but I certainly do work to make food look attractive. Everybody prefers food that looks pretty or that has a nice name - kids get into "little trees", but grown-ups like "Organic broccoli carefully sauteed in butter from upstate New York, with a touch of salt and a hint of rosemary" a lot more than "Broccoli".

And everybody prefers to have a meal that looks nice than one that's just slopped onto a plate - it's just that kids get into face pizzas where adults might like fancy garnishes.

So, yeah, I make carrot hearts and cucumber roses and all, and half our pizzas are on waffles - because it takes so little effort and it just *looks nice*.

[Tracy]

We rephrase names of foods into things our super picky son will at least try.

He devours pasta in butter, but won't try tomato sauce, even though he devours pizza. Hence, lasagna became "pizza noodles," which he now eats. Quesadillas became cheesy pita, that sort of thing.
It's not foolproof, but some things it works for.

[SW]

We have an 18-month-old who, like many toddlers, seems to subsist on nothing more than half a cracker crumb most days, and I try very hard not to worry about that. I don't believe in bribing, threatening, forcing when it comes to food. I make him breakfast, lunch and dinner and sit with him at the table (as a family at dinner, and sometimes the other meals too) and he eats what he wants and I try not to do the "just one more bite, please, for mommy" routine, though I have been tempted, believe me.

But what you're talking about in this hint is having fun--and I very much believe in that. When you describe the spaghetti dinner, that's something your girls will remember forever. That's a family tradition; something they're likely to recall fondly when they're parents themselves. And, if anyone says there is anything wrong with that, ignore them. Completely.

-Susan W.

[Andrew K]

My wife and I are lucky enough to have a little boy who just likes stuff. As long as we're eating it, he likes it (knock wood.) Generally the only trouble we have is when we're trying to serve him something other than what we're having. Kind of like pretending you're going to eat their food, I guess, but different.

[chris]

We're in the toddler "I only eat waffles and bananas" phase this month and we realized we can get her to eat ANYTHING if it is on the waffle. Crammed peas into the waffle holes, she loved it. Mash up cooked veggies and spread on the waffle, she loved it. Waffle holes are deep and hold a surprising amount of food.

[Katie]

The other night I was making edamame (in the shell) and decided to get my finicky kids to try it. I told them they were "zipper beans" and showed them how to pull the string (zipper) to get the beans out. They also figured out how to squeeze them too, and both ate a full serving! I let my daughter dip her beans in ketchup though, as she wasn't crazy about the bean taste.

[GPV]

When my husband is in charge of dinner, he comes up with clever names for spur-of-the-moment pantry creations. "Cowboy chuckwagon" is cut-up hotdogs in baked beans, served with cornbread on the side and stories of how real cowboys cook this way out on the range. His culinary coup d'etat, however, was Pirate Chowder, a concocation of canned crabmeat, shrimp, and lord knows what turned into a stew--like he used to make when he was a pirate. The kids ate it up, literally and figuratively.

[jamie]

Last night the happy "kidney bean family" was devoured one-by-one by our 3 y/o. First the boy, then the girl, the mom, the dad, the grandma, the dog. Oddly, the teacher was spared...

[Harmzie]

This reminds me of the book "I will never, not ever eat a tomato" by Lauren Child. My older children (8 & 6) got into the notion of "orange twiglets from Jupiter" even though they already liked carrots. However, I had to hold them back from eating the whole bag, lest they turn orange!

I can usually determine to what degree my 3yo son has dug his heels in by attempting to eat his meal. If he lets me, he really doesn't want it. If he shreiks "NOOOO!!!", he's just doggin' it.

[sally]

Cowboy Eggs (regular scrambled eggs).

Rock Band Banana.

Spiderman meat (pork carnitas).

"This is called a super delicious mini apple, and I got it just for you".

All used in the past 24 hours chez nous.

[hedra]

We're boring, so our kids come up with their own entertainment. We just allow it.

Like, a couple days ago, Miss R decided to eat pasta through a straw. Seriously, she threaded the noodle up the straw to the end, and sucked it up from there. Keeps the whipping around while being sucked in thing down low, too. ;) Yeah, it's eating with your hands, but she's not 4 yet... not a fret.

My kids also eat various things in imagination when they eat - trees, dinosaurs, mommy (I eat YOU mommy! NOM, CRUNCH!... I just say 'nnooooooo, don't eat MOMMY!'). My mom also makes maps in the oatmeal, and they eat the continent, state, country, whatever. We did this when I was little, too. OH, NO, you ate SWITZERLAND! Did you eat any mountain climbers? Ibex? Mountain goats? Boulders? Oh, no, not a GLACIER! (etc.) And yeah, there are a lot of all-caps in that last bit, but we play it super-dramatic for effect. ;)

[Duane]

Hedra reminds me, I will have to explain the whole OM NOM NOM NOM NOM thing to my kids real soon now :).

[erika]

My daughter was a fabulous eater - anything and everything - until she turned two and we brought home her baby sister, and suddenly her grapes were too sticky, her blueberries were too dirty, her string cheese was too stringy. You get the idea. We tried not to push it too much and eventually she came back around, but she's still very picky.

She won't eat crusts, but instead of just trimming them off we cut out the center of her sandwiches with large cookie cutters. We arrange veggies into smiley faces, as another commenter wrote. We also aim for fancy presentation - fish-shaped plates and flower-shaped plates from seasonal collections, and lots of little ramekins for dips or small servings of veggies.

[Kimberly C]

I have a blessedly good eater (knock wood) the only thing that I think that I have ever (not on purpose) gotten her to eat by name alone was "circle bread"- the little circles of bread that are left out when you make an egg in a basket- which is the only way that I can fry an egg.

[Kimberly C]

queen of the run on sentence much?

[Lauren]

My daughter eats pretty well, but she especially likes dipping (any food into any dip). It's messy but totally worth it. Dip ideas: mix honey or ranch dressing into plain yogurt, or use ketchup, soy sauce, butternut squash soup, guacamole, salsa, etc.

[Miechelle]

Ever have meatloaf cupcakes with mash potato frosting and corn sprinkles?