Why your kids' snacks are perpetuating picky eating and poor nutrition
In this four-part series, I am going to spell out four of the most common mistakes I see with snacking and their ties to picky eating starting with one of our kids being stuck on a particular produce.
We so often know these issues are happening but can't identify exactly what can be done about them to improve our child's picky eating and add variety to their diet.
That's why, I am going to go over 1) what is happening AND 2) what you can do about it so that your child's snacks no longer perpetuate picky eating starting with part 1.
We will talk about how consistency in the type of love it food offered creates a sense of comfort that, when left too long, can create problems. Thankfully, there are five simple swaps you can make to your child's preferred snack foods to add variety, expand their list of accepted snacks, and add variety to the foods they enjoy.
SHOWNOTES:
Check out the YouTube video of this episode here.
Head here for a FREE cheatsheet to 72 of my favorite healthy kids snack foods.
Order your set of my digital downloads or physical decks of Combination Cards here.
Ready to take the next step in improving your family's meals and snacks? Schedule a free 30-minute strategy session with me here.
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] Today kicks off a four-part series that I'm gonna be doing about why your kid's snacking is perpetuating picky eating and poor nutrition. I'm going to be covering four different reasons I see this happen. Of course, this isn't an all-encompassing list, but these are four very common things that I think are very easily avoidable with a little bit more awareness and some action being taken.
[00:00:21] So in each of these four episodes, I'm gonna be identifying what these mistakes are and what I often see happening, and also what you can do about it to begin helping your child prevent picky eating and promote better nutrition. As parents, I know that we want variety for our kids. We're craving better nutrition, and we're buying snack options and attempts to do that.
[00:00:45] However, one of the mistakes that I see parents often making. Is that they are relying on the consistency of different. Pre-prepared or pre-packaged foods. This is not a attack on packaged food, that's actually a different episode. But instead, it's just to bring some awareness to some of the lack of variety that we have in the foods that we're already offering at home.
[00:01:08] So I wanna talk about what I see happening. So that it can start to be a little bit more on the forefront of your mind, and then you can begin to identify ways that you can do it a little bit differently. If we think about foods like pretzels, granola bars, or granola, bite dried fruit, applesauce, snack crackers, granola, lavas, none of these foods are bad foods.
[00:01:36] That's something I'm going to stand behind each and every time I talk about different things with you. But the challenge that we run into with these foods is that when these foods make it on our child's Lovett food and begin, begin buying the same granola bars, same granola bites, the same type of pretzels, same dried fruit from the same store, and the same package or the same snack crackers of the same flavor, we can often find that that consistency is actually perpetuating the picky eating.
[00:02:05] And promoting poor nutrition in our kids. Not because of the food in and of itself, but because our children crave that type of consistency. Because there's very little variation between pretzel to pretzel or granola byte to neola granola byte, or cheddar bunny to cheddar bunny, or even dried apricot to dried apricot.
[00:02:25] Our children learn that that consistency is comfortable, that they don't have to branch out, that they don't have to try really new foods, because if they like pretzels, this brain of pretzels is really reliable. It's really comfortable. It's really consistent, and there's security in that, particularly for kids who have tendencies towards more picky eating.
[00:02:46] When we look at things like dried fruit or even something like an English muffin, there's very little variation and it can branch out a little bit so kids see a little less consistency because some might, some dried apricots, for example, may be a little softer or a little tougher, or an English muffin offered with butter.
[00:03:06] Maybe offered a little more or a little less toasty. Or something like a bowl of cereal. While the cereal in and of itself is pretty consistent, once we've added milk, depending on how long it's been sitting there, it may be more or less soggy. We move on to things like fruits and vegetables, and if we cut up this giant half of watermelon, each piece is going to be a little different.
[00:03:26] There's gonna be different amounts of seeds that's gonna be a different amount of juiciness or sweetness based on is it close to the Rhine or away from it? If we're offering something like some vegetables, there might be some that are crunchier and crisper than others. There might be some that have gotten a little soggy sitting in the corner of a package.
[00:03:44] Each of these things are natural variations that happen with food. However, when our kids get used to consistency and things coming in a certain form the same way every time. It can perpetuate some of the problems that we see with picky eating because they lean on that consistency for their comfort in the foods that they learn to like.
[00:04:03] And so when we look at their love it list, and if you haven't downloaded that my Love It, like It Learning IT list, of course I encourage you to do so so that you can fill out a T graph for your own child's. Love it, like It, and learning IT Foods. But oftentimes what we see, Is with a child's levit foods having a high level of specificity, meaning they like crackers.
[00:04:22] Well, what type of crackers? These crackers, not the other ones that are in the pantry, that are the non cheddar ones, not the ones that are a different animal shape, not the ones that are a different square shape, not the ones that have the cheesy powder on top of it. These crackers, if that's the level of specificity that we're working with, it becomes much more challenging to branch out.
[00:04:42] And there are children who have more extreme cases of picky eating, and this is a challenge that we just have to work through. Every child's going to have different challenges, and sometimes those are the challenges that a child has to overcome. However, with. More traditional picky eating or selective eating choices that I see in a greater majority of kids and families that I work with a lot of time as buying this consistent product and as buying this one every time, and it being the exact same every time, is perpetuating picky eating that isn't innate to the child, but it's perpetuated by the environment.
[00:05:17] That they're eating within. And so making simple swaps to these is really what we can begin to do next. So while there's nothing wrong with buying the same applesauce cup or squeezy applesauce pouch, or big jug of it for a little bit more cost effective of an option, you can see very quickly and easily how different that's going to be each and every time you do it.
[00:05:38] Each and every apple that you're making it with compared to the consistent alternative. So if your child has on their loveit list, applesauce, explore, do they love all applesauce or do you mean that they love this applesauce? If they love this applesauce, can you also buy this applesauce and have it accepted?
[00:05:58] Because helping them add foods to their lovet list in this way is where we're going to begin adding foods in additional ways so that they can learn to like something like a yogurt or a sour cream or a cream cheese or a cottage cheese or something that's been food chained to accept additional nutritional variety.
[00:06:17] But so often we want our children, they love applesauce and we want them to learn to like tacos, and it's just such a leap where we're not identifying. What's the change big enough that we can notice, but small enough that our kids don't care. So if our child can't make a jump from say a product like an applesauce pouch to an applesauce cup, we may have to first start with taking this out of the pouch and putting it in a little cup so that they can eat this applesauce that they can't even see in an applesauce pouch, and putting it in a different container.
[00:06:48] So that we've changed either the shape, the taste, the texture, the temperature, or the color of a given item so that they see there's different variations of this item that I can learn to like, because I like this one. And then we can begin to branch out. This is how we can begin saving money as well, because we find more cost effective options, whether it be buying the applesauce that's on sale, buying a bigger container of it.
[00:07:13] So that we can just pour it into a bowl and don't have to buy it pre-packaged and single-use plastic or so that we can begin exploring new options and offerings on our own and make homemade applesauce. If you are engaging with your kid to make homemade applesauce, you are going to know that no matter how many apples you use, how big of a scoop of cinnamon or sugar or liquid that you're adding to it.
[00:07:36] Each batch is going to be a little different. There is going to be variation, but helping our kids learn to like variations of their favorite foods is one of the quickest and easiest and best ways to fast track adding variety to your child's diet and preventing picky eating. So if you're used to offering something like the apple sauce, I walked you through that example, but say maybe pretzels are a Lovett food for your child.
[00:08:02] Maybe you jump to one a peanut butter softed one for a more filling snack option. You might say to me, no way is my child going to make a jump from a simple twisty pretzel to one that's stuffed peanut butter. Okay. That's a good thing to observe when you're writing their love it like it learning it list.
[00:08:21] You can identify they like twisty pretzels. You probably even know the brand that you tend to buy. They're used to and comfortable with the consistency in that item. So what is something that is big enough that they'll notice, but small enough that they won't mind between these two options? It might be buying that same brand.
[00:08:41] In a stick shape. It might be buying the same brand in the bigger size of twisty pencil. It might be buying a different brand that has different brand standards and is going to have a slightly different consistency. Or shape or texture or level of saltiness in the taste of it. But you want to find small ways that you can move outside of just that simple, same preferred, consistent Lovett food option to something that's gonna have allow a little bit more variety.
[00:09:12] Now this process is going to look different depending on what your end goal is. This is not necessarily the end all, be all goal. This is just an example, and I happen to really love these. But you might also see something like English muffins. Maybe you're buying a white flower, bit more refined flower based English muffin right now, and yet you have a goal of incorporating more fiber into your child's diet and helping them have more whole grains.
[00:09:38] It may take some time to transition them to something like a whole grain English muffin. However, even with the English muffin, I don't have that one on hand to show as an example, but even with a white flower based English muffin as your starting point. You may begin to change what you top it with, how much you toast it, or the brand of those that you're buying before you make a jump like this.
[00:10:01] So if your starting place is a plain white flower English muffin, there's steps you can make to get to a goal that's going to offer more whole grains and incorporate more fiber in your child's diet. So begin identifying can they make the jump. From one to the other. And for some foods and for some children, they will, and it won't be a big effort that requires a lot of baby steps.
[00:10:22] But for a lot of kids, particularly kids who are more prone to picky eating or have just be learned to rely on that sameness and that consistency of the products that have become commonplace in your house, it may take some baby steps to get to another offering, but by you changing the color, the shape, the taste, the temperature, and the texture of the foods that you're offering, You can begin overcoming picky eating and improving your child's nutrition.
[00:10:51] For more examples on how to do this, I wanna encourage you to check out the digital download or the physical decks of my combination card on each and every one. You can see that there's an opportunity to take any given item, say something like a waffle. You probably know exactly which freezer waffle or which waffle batter that you buy for your child each and every time, and how you prepare it.
[00:11:11] But we wanna begin thinking about how can we branch out from that to begin adding variety in the small things so that we end up seeing added variety and improved nutrition in the big things. So it might be simply changing the shape that we offer it. It's the same waffle. We just, instead of in a circle, we maybe cut it into the shape of a waffle cone.
[00:11:30] And made it look like a little ice cream cone. We might be buying one that's a different color. This might be the change between a white and a wheat flower, or it might be one that has color added, or even something like the color of a chocolate chip added as a small step towards our eventual gold. We might be changing the texture and we might be in the waffle iron that we always use for regular waffles.
[00:11:51] We might be also making egg waffles, so it's egg in the shape of a waffle. We could be changing the taste of it by adding different fruits or yogurts or whipped cream instead of maybe the go-to syrup that your child might be really comfortable with. The consistency of. Or we might be changing the texture where instead of eating a waffle as a breakfast food in the morning, we instead turned it into a sandwich and ate it at a different temperature and a different time in something like lunch.
[00:12:18] These are just really simple suggestions, but each and every one of these cards is going to give you different ideas of how you can begin to branch out and add variety through these simple variations at breakfast and lunch. And one of the reasons that this is important for us to recognize. And to do something about right now as we enter into summer is because during the school year, we often rely on that consistency.
[00:12:41] We often rely on those foods that we know that our children will eat. So if we send it in their lunchbox, we know that they have familiar fuel to eat during the school day, whether they're in daycare or preschool or elementary school or beyond. We know that we want our kids to be familiar because we can't seize the same opportunities.
[00:12:58] When our children are outside the home as we can when they're inside the home, so if you don't yet have my combination cards in the digital or the physical decks, I encourage you to do so because summertime is an excellent time for you to begin seeing how can we make some of these baby steps? How can we begin incorporating things that are big enough?
[00:13:16] My child's going to notice, but small enough that they're not gonna care. How can we begin incorporating variety? Through new variations of the foods that I already know, that they know and love. Because if they're leaning too much on that consistency of you buying the same boxer brand or shape of cereal every time, or the same bar or applesauce each and every time for each and every snack, that's going to create.
[00:13:43] Some challenges that are going to perpetuate picky eating and poor nutrition, and yet we can easily do things a little differently without absorbing a lot of extra work on ourselves to just be a little bit more intentional about the foods that we're offering.