Picky Eating

What’s in a Name?

By Daring Young Mom on Friday, August 8, 9:52 am EDT

We call it "leaves and sauce," that lovely little dish most people call salad. Spinach leaves are the best with sauce because they have those nice little green stem handles you can use for the dipping. My kids love leaves and sauce, but salad? They won’t touch it.

Growing up I HATED split pea soup, lentil soup, and vegetable soup. The names were just so unappetizing and then when I tasted them, the flavors matched my expectations perfectly. Now I’m a grownup and somewhat literate, and after reading and studying I’ve decided that lentils are definitely in my future. They are full of fiber and protein and we must all consume them with joy and health.

So this week I whipped up a crock pot recipe called Bean, Herb, and Vegetable Soup. Laylee looked at the green concoction with nose upturned.

“Um, Mom. What is this?”
“It’s…um…HAM SOUP!”
“HAM SOUP!? I LOVE HAM!”

She then proceeded to eat a full adult portion of the veggies and lentils sprinkled with ham chunks. I felt a surge of joy at my own brilliance. Now I want to rename everything, although I know the magic won’t last forever.

Broccoli is “mini trees.” A super-long drive is an “adventure.” A girls’ weekend away for Mom is a “special party for Dads and kids.”

When I was little, my mom renamed “Cleaning the House” as doing a “15-minute Blitz.” She would play loud dance music to camouflage the actual point of the activity, set a timer for 15 minutes, and run around the house cheering us on as we all “blitzed” the toys away…like a party. This little deception worked for a couple of years, but eventually I caught on and the “blitz” became the bane of my existence. If she was gonna force us into slave labor, the least she could do was stop acting so HAPPY about it.

Now that I’m the mom, I find myself initiating blitzes all over the house. The music comes on, my jazz hands come out, and the children are forced into servitude. “It’s a CLEANING PARTY!” I cheer, and we run around picking up Polly Pockets and raisins off the floor. It totally almost works, too. I estimate that I’ve got at least 10 more days before the kids catch on and completely rebel.

I hope the appeal of “Ham Soup” lasts a little longer than that.

_____

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Christina

So true...

8/8/2008 at 11:25 am

When I was younger my Mom would let us pick out our own "House Cleaning Music." We would put on the tape and dance around to Madonna or Bon Jovi. Cleaning the house didn't seem so bad when you were belting "Living on a Prayer" into the mop handle! But then our much younger sister got old enough to catch on. The day we had to clean the house to Barney's Greatest Hits was the day the magic all ended!

midlife mommy

That was brilliant! I wish

8/8/2008 at 2:40 pm

That was brilliant! I wish it would work with my daughter. She hates everything, so a label isn't going to matter. You know, she licked some cotton candy yesterday and decided it wasn't for her. Really? She's unbelievable sometimes.

Tamara

My children have enjoyed

8/8/2008 at 8:25 pm

My children have enjoyed cleaning up around the house to the music of the Ozark's. I have no idea where they found this music, but they seem to enjoy it and it works so I don't fight it.

Shelly

One for the resume!

8/9/2008 at 2:46 am

I think renaming food in an effort to get our children to at least try it is something I excel at. One of my least favorites however (and I shared it on DYM's site) is our term for chicken nuggets. Not that nugget is all that appetizing of a term itself...but at our house chicken nuggets = chicken cookies. Yes, our children are those strange creatures who (at one point) refused to eat chicken nuggets. So we started calling them chicken cookies. Yeah, it's been two years since we've started that and it still grosses me out that we refer to them in that way. I think what is so wrong about this is that there might actually be more nutritional value in a cookie than in a chicken nugget :)

Jillian

Chicken Cookies

8/9/2008 at 9:15 am

I dare say yeah that is so grose, but I love this idea. I am doubtful that it will work on my 3 year old as he is hard to fool when it comes to food, but I am almost at the point of giving it a go. It is hilarious and ewww at the same time. My son stopped eating about a year ago maybe a little longer. As a baby he would eat everything in sight, but not now. I have seen a little pin prick of light at the end of the tunnel recently. He has actually started eating apples, my heart sings with joy! This is my son's repertoire Mac N' Cheese (aka spider man noonas) peanut butter sandwich (no crust no jelly) those orange pb crackers ritz cheese gogurt apples with peanut butter cheese pizza grilled cheese chocolate milk and of course any and all junk food he could possibly get his hands on. If we go out to a ff restaurant it's a cheese burger with ketchup hold the meat. So you see I am in a desparate situation here. Jillian

Thea @ I'm a Drama Mama

(Sigh)

8/9/2008 at 10:16 am

We've tried renaming stuff with my kids but the never bought into it. Not once. They still don't eat very much...hopefully that'll change soon. Now the cleaning on the other hand...just the other day, we had a "Speed Sort". How fast can you decide if you want to keep something or trash it and then take it to the appropriate spot. 2 rooms in 20 minutes to be exact.

Awesome Mom

Jumping beans

8/9/2008 at 11:06 am

Beans in our house are called jumping beans because they like to hop into your mouth. My youngest calls broccoli trees, I didn't even have to come up with that one.

chilihead

White Peaches

8/9/2008 at 11:19 am

We had "white peaches" for a while (pears). My son didn't like pears, but he liked the white peaches and regular peaches. Unfortunately, there is no amount of renaming that will entice either of my children to eat soup or broccoli. Heavy sigh. I love soup and broccoli, and I'm the only one in my family who will eat it.

Lacey

When my daughters are being

8/9/2008 at 6:55 pm

When my daughters are being slow I often make it a race. "Who can get their pajamas on the fastest?" "Who can get their cup the fastest?" It makes for two competitive girls sometimes and neither likes to lose. Sliced beets are red pancakes, or frisbees. Broccoli are trees sometimes there are birds in the trees or snakes as they're being eaten. My favorite, and my girls, are clouds, AKA mashed potatoes. My girls are really good eaters though, so most of the names are for fun.

bon

don't ask...

8/9/2008 at 8:06 pm

because the reasons for the names are lost in the ages... but boiled eggs are "monkey eggs", over easy's are "eyeball eggs" scrambled eggs are "trammeled" and orange juice is "monkey juice." Parmesian cheese is "sprinkle cheese" and is a favorite when paired with "chubby noodles" a.k.a. rigatoni. My all-time favorite deception was pulled by my mother though.... she insisted that the main ingredient in zuccini bread was pistacio. We CALLED it Pistacio Bread for years.

Azucar

Trees!

8/9/2008 at 11:38 pm

Yes, broccoli are trees at our house too. One night I dipped the steamed broccoli tops into grated parmesan cheese. Viola! Trees with snow on them! I try creative naming all the time, it's my secret weapon. For half a year my son hated the word "dinner" so we had "lunch" twice a day!

Carrie

Granola bars are 'cookie

8/10/2008 at 3:05 am

Granola bars are 'cookie bars.' Seems to make them think they're more bad for them than they are!

Bailey's Leaf

Hmmm. My daughter is a

8/10/2008 at 1:16 pm

Hmmm. My daughter is a really good eater, so I haven't had to cheese cover veggies or rename, but we have renamed a few things out of fun or just because of kid ease. We have toasty cheese with our soup. She has two handies. (Because they are very handy handies.) We have snackadoodles. Why? Well, because we can! :)

Raelynn

Meat Loaf...

8/10/2008 at 7:16 pm

At first, I felt a bit guilty about our own renaming strategy, but I'm glad to hear that it is part of being a Mom...sort of like something you are born with...the skill of renaming food. I love it! Surprisingly, our two toddler boys love meat loaf. So, whenever we make anything that has hamburg in it, it is always called "meat loaf"...hamburgers, meatballs, meat stuffing...it's all meat loaf. We do this with so many other things too. A grilled cheese is a cheese robot (you probably figured out that we shape it like a robot). Almost every sandwich meat is called ham. I love all the other naming ideas as well. Thanks for the tips! raelynn www.kidzcomfort.com

Faith

Food Renaming

8/11/2008 at 2:50 pm

This strategy is about to be rolled out with force at our house since our toddler is possibly the fussiest I have met yet when it comes to food. Thanks for the tips!

Sketchy

Eat like a dinosaur...

8/12/2008 at 7:44 pm

trees (broccoli) didn't quite work until my husband came up with the "Eating Like a Dinosaur", which gave the kids all an excuse to roar at the dinner table before munching on those trees. I've only in the past couple years brought salad back to the table, I've done well with "try this" and offering one little slice of broccoli slaw to my pickiest son, before he sees it in a big group of salad. We've also enjoy "chip" salad instead of Taco salad as well.

Heather Lafter

Elmo Trees

9/9/2008 at 4:05 pm

A child I nannied hated to eat...but loved Elmo!! One night was pasta and broccoli (elmo trees) and pasta...he couldn't eat enough. After all Elmo loved them...why wouldn't he?