I don’t believe in using “sneaky” tactics to get my child to eat better. The closest I have ever come to this, however, was a bit of fun I would play with my daughter when she was a toddler.

The fun went like this; when serving a new item, often a vegetable, I would not ask her to try it. After a while, I would eye longingly at the item on her plate, then look away as soon as she saw me. Then look back. Knowing that most toddlers don’t want an item until another toddler does, and the might of the “Mine!” instinct, I would then move my hand toward the item, asking, “Are you going to eat that? Because I really, really like it.”

Sure enough, the “Mine!” would kick in and suddenly that item became her favorite thing on the plate. This doesn’t always work. Be prepared to get that vegetable you asked for at times. But it is generally either joyfully eaten in front of you, or handed over with a giggle.

At some point, I realized it doesn’t matter if she tried the item on the first try or the fifteenth. It didn’t matter if she ever liked that particular recipe. What mattered is we were laughing at the table over sharing food and our interaction with trying new foods was fun and not stressful.

These days, the open-minded approach works best. At our table, it’s okay to say you don’t like a food, but you need to be able to explain why and we can talk about likes and preferences. “It’s okay if you don’t like this recipe,” I say. “But tell me why so I can try something different next time.”

I do my best, even when I am tired, to have real conversation at the table. Some days, things are too busy, dinner is rushed, and real life just gets in the way. It’s good to give myself some permission to not be the right “recipe” sometimes, too. What matters most, is that we just try. And enjoy our dinner together.

I recently interviewed an expert in feeding therapy, Dr. Ramasamy Manikam, Director of the Center for Pediatric Feeding Disorders at St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children. He offered some reassuring advice for all of us parents that may help us all feel less stress and have more fun at the table:

• No one food ‘has to be eaten’ unless for medical reasons.
• What matters most is that your child is healthy and taking a variety of other foods.
• Every eating ‘quirk’ is not a feeding disorder. If the child is healthy with normal growth trajectories the ‘feeding issues’ are overcome through ‘common-sense’ actions and time.
• Typical picky eating is a perfectly normal phase.
• A true food disorder and cause for concern is when your child is not receiving balanced nutrients with sufficient intake for proper growth and development, this requires medical evaluation and feeding therapy if warranted.
• Let your child watch you enjoy the food yourself and do not show stress over mealtimes in front of the child.

Many thanks to Dr. Ramasamy Manikam, PhD, for his advice in this post.

I’ve taken my daughter to the farmers market nearly every weekend since she was three months old. She graduated from her perch in the front carrier, smiling out at all she saw, to her favorite “ride” in a backpack while I shopped for our produce, hands-free. These days, she has her own market basket and is a lot more help.

For me, the gorgeous produce is my favorite reason for coming. For both of us, market days also mean time to just hang out and listen to the band playing. There in the summer months there is a splash fountain for the little ones to play in, and a year-around there is a warm community of other families also just spending time enjoying the day. These moments are magic for both of us, and have been a huge part of her childhood. I hope these are lasting memories for my child as well as a lasting association of those pleasant Saturday mornings with the food we bought together.

Food adventures can include trying a new cuisine. But often, they don’t involve eating at all until the foraged item makes it home to your kitchen!

Some great ideas for family food adventures:

• Farm tours offer a lot of outdoor play for kids, along with the vegetables.
• Pumpkin patches may be the best place for a pony ride or a bounce house, but most sell eating pumpkins as well as with the carving varieties.
• U-pick berry patches.
• Field gleaning, charity gardening, or farm volunteer days.
• Farm stands on a Sunday drive.
• Food and cultural festivals all offer fun food venues to explore with the goal of building your child’s food attitude.
• Cooking classes, cooking travel.
• “Volunteer” vacations at organic farms.
• Kids gardening workshops at your local arboretum or community centers.
• Garden tours and hikes, culinary history tours.
• Gardening and cooking together at home.

It’s spring. What are you waiting for? Go have fun!

Good food is a complete sensory experience. If your child is having trouble with getting past the barrier to taste at the table, maybe its time to engage all of his other senses long before the dinner bell.

Smell is one of the most important senses. It is, in fact, the primary way we “taste” foods. One of my child’s favorite games from her toddler years is one we still play today. It’s called “Guess the Spice.”

I’ll confess that my spice cabinet could be included in a pantry edition of ‘Hoarders.” There are easily 200 jars of various exotic spices and aromatic herbs stashed in there. Many of those little jars I purchased without a recipe in mind, simply because I loved the smell. A less expensive way to play is to find a good spice store where there are display jars.

My child and I would take turns choosing a spice. The other would have to describe the smell and what we like — or don’t like — about it, then guess what it is. My theory was that if I could expand my child’s sensory palate, her tastes would expand as well. Later, when cooking, I could incorporate some of her favorite spices from the game into our meal.

Other senses are fun to explore together as well. In the grocery produce section or the farmers market, while my child was learning colors, we would play “I Spy.” One of us would “spy” a particular item, then she would name its color. The other one of us would have to figure out what was spied. Together we would go investigate each “spied” fruit or vegetable and learn about each item; what shape is it; what is its name; how does it smell; is it a fruit or a vegetable?

This game is another way to incorporate fun with building food familiarity. When a child is more familiar with a food item, even just by sight or smell or play with a toy version of that item, this familiarity can help reduce a child’s barriers to trying the new food.

These days toy kitchens range from pink 1940s retro to a state-of-the art outdoor play grill. While most of us parents are choosing play food settings with things in mind like durability and “just what do they mean by ‘some assembly required’?” We might be surprised to find out that this kind of food play may actually make our real food settings more fun, too.

“Just why it is important to provide children with healthy toy foods to play with relates to the concept of “food familiarity,” explains Nutrition Education and Behavior Researcher Meghan Lynch, author of the recently published study, Playing With Food: A Novel Approach To Understanding Nutritional Behaviour Development.

“Food familiarity refers to children’s preference for foods with which they are accustomed to seeing on a regular basis – the more familiar the food, the more likely the child will be to taste it. Importantly, children’s food preferences can be encouraged through their merely seeing these foods on a regular basis, and that repeated exposure to foods can overcome the initial refusal of them. It should follow, then, that one of the most important ways parents can encourage the development of healthy food preferences is by increasing children’s familiarity with new foods.”

So, in the toy kitchen, where there’s no pressure for trying a bite and where you only have to pretend to do the dishes, you can actually reduce some of your child’s barriers to eating healthy foods while you are having fun.

Toy kitchen settings are also a great place to start safely teaching basic cooking skills and kitchen safety.

“In the safety of play settings, parents can familiarize children with new foods and behaviors by teaching children how to chop vegetables, stir pots of food, and correctly use the oven or stovetop,” Lynch continues.

Children also mirror their parents’ cooking behaviors in these settings. In her research, Meghan Lynch observed children as young as three correctly using utensils, chopping and washing vegetables and stirring their “dinner” on the stove top.

Here are some tips to get the most from your kitchen playtime:

• Choose only healthy foods for your child to interact with.
• Avoid branded junk food items that risk familiarizing your child with unhealthy preferences.
• Express your preferences for healthy items, and delight when “eating” them when at kitchen play with your child.
• Model healthy food behaviors, such as creating a balanced plate of food choices or not “overeating” during play meals.
• Use the time to help rehearse good kitchen safety skills with your child.
• As your child gets older, help her or him transition these cooking skills to the real kitchen.

Many thanks to Nutrition Education and Behavior Researcher Meghan Lynch of the University of Toronto  for her insights for this post.

Sometimes as parents we get so focused on what our children are eating (or not eating) that we miss out on a very important part of the experience: the how. Of course, table manners are important, and sometimes I wonder if those will ever come, but this “how” is more than proper use of a fork. How we eat is also about our attitude toward food, the meal, and the time spent together.

These three things are meant to be joyous. Even fun. As we’re forming our children’s social attitude toward food, fun may just be the secret ingredient to success.

It is rather hard, after a long day of working at home or an office, to make dinner amidst the end-of-day chaos, and arrive at the dinner table ready to have a laugh. I can tell when I am overwhelmed most, because my sense of humor is the first thing that fades. It’s not easy having fun, sometimes.

When I look back at my family meals growing up, the best memories are of the laughter at the dinner table, the adventures of gathering our food and making it together, not so much the actual meals themselves. I remember my brother putting half a green bean up his nose to make us laugh. I remember picking my first strawberry and making real jam from scratch, all five of us in the kitchen together. I recall giggling while my grandmother called my dad “Joey” and dished him out more ice cream than any one container could possibly hold. I remember the little squeeze of hands around the table at the end of the Thanksgiving blessing.

When I envision my child’s future, these are the kinds of memories I want her to have. Okay, not so much the green bean, but the laughter and togetherness and love that comes from a healthy relationship with food.

For the next few posts, let’s raise our milk glass to fun and forget about the mealtime stress. Let’s celebrate the joy of food, and discover how that makes better food habits for our children.

Sticking to a healthy diet can be a struggle for a lot of us. In my own experience, there are times when my diet gets off track — especially holidays. When I was pregnant, as an older mom, I had some issues with borderline gestational diabetes. Once I learned of the relationship between not managing my blood sugars and the risks for my child, I found willpower I never had before despite my last trimester occurring from the start of Halloween candy season, through Thanksgiving’s pumpkin pie, Christmas cookies, and right up to Valentine’s chocolate time! In many ways, this was the moment where I first stepped up as a mom, putting my own wants aside for my child’s needs.

New research, however, makes a compelling case for all expecting moms to eat well, not just those of us who have special circumstances. Previously, I covered insights on the relationship between your healthy diet while pregnant and lowering your child’s risk of Type II diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease, as well as decreasing the your child’s risk of autism.

Here are three more top reasons to eat healthy while you are pregnant:

You Can Give Your Child a Higher I.Q. Consider eating more organic produce while you are pregnant. Three separate studies, funded by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, point to a relationship between pesticide exposure for pregnant moms and a significant decrease in IQ for their children. For every 10-fold increase of a mother’s exposure to organophosphates — the class of pesticides studied — her child had an average drop of 5.5 I.Q. points. Researchers compared the impact of pesticide exposure to the similar discovery of the effects of lead on children’s I.Q.s.

If you can’t afford to buy all organic produce, try purchasing organic for the fruits and vegetables on the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen” list. These items tend to contain the most pesticide residues. EWG also has a “Clean Fifteen” list of non-organic produce varieties that have the least pesticide residue.

You Can Lower Your Daughter’s Risk of Early Onset Puberty A high fat diet during pregnancy may also be linked to risk of early-onset puberty for your daughter. Girls who experience early puberty have a higher rate of obesity, insulin resistance, teenage depression, and breast cancer in adulthood.

The study, from The Liggins Institute of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, also indicated that your diet during pregnancy has more influence on the risk of early onset puberty than even your daughter’s own diet after birth.

And, Yes, You Can Help Your Child Become a Less Picky Eater Before your child was old enough to demand mac and cheese, the foods you ate during pregnancy already set some taste preferences for your child by “flavoring” the amniotic fluid, according to research from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. In the study, infants whose mothers who drank carrot juice every day during pregnancy or while breastfeeding preferred cereal made with carrot juice instead of water when they first were able to eat cereals. Pregnancy may just be the easiest time in your child’s life to get her to eat her vegetables!

There is one more reason to eat healthy during pregnancy — your own health! Pregnancy is hard work for us moms, along with the months ahead of minimal sleep and breastfeeding your newborn. By eating well for ourselves, we can help give our little ones a stronger, healthier mom.

If you are pregnant, you’re probably thinking a lot more about baby names and how to store up a few months of extra sleep rather than that eventual battle over broccoli when your baby becomes a toddler. Yet now may be one of your best opportunities to help him to love his vegetables!

New, compelling research in epigenics — the relationship between genetics and environmental factors on how those genes are expressed — indicates your diet while pregnant can be a factor in your child’s IQ, risk of autism, and future risk of obesity and her long term health, including how well she ages as an adult, and yes, taste preferences — even for vegetables.

Six top reasons to eat healthy while you are pregnant:

You Can Lower Your Child’s Risk of Type II Diabetes and Age-related Diseases as an Adult. According to research funded by the BBSRC and the British Heart Foundation, your diet regulates your baby’s development of a gene called Hnf4a that relates to pancreas development. Eating poorly during pregnancy may increase the rate that this gene is altered in your child as he ages — upping his risk of developing Type II Diabetes as an adult. In related research published in the Journal of Lipid Research, a high fat diet during pregnancy may not only increase the likelihood of your child developing Type II Diabetes, but the risk for your grandchildren as well.

You Can Lower Your Child’s Risk of Obesity and Heart Disease as an Adult. If a chronic craving for Krispy Kremes is a regular indulgence while you are eating for two, you might want to reach for some antioxidant-rich fruits and veggies instead. Those junk foods high in fat and sugar that make your cholesterol and triglycerides skyrocket also raise your unborn child’s levels.

Research published in The Journal of Physiology showed that these infants were not only more likely to be obese as adolescents, but may have lasting alterations to their metabolism, including liver damage, and an increase in their tendency to gain weight and overeat. The good news is, if your diet during pregnancy is high in healthy antioxidants, your child’s risk of obesity is decreased. Now that’s a great reason to get your five (or more) a day!

You Can Decrease Your Child’s Risk of Autism. Babies born from mothers who are obese, have high blood pressure, or have diabetes — Type I or Type II — have a 60 percent increased risk of developing autism. For all pregnant women with these conditions, it’s advisable to seek a high-risk obstetrician.  For diabetic moms-to-be, this newly discovered link makes it even more essential to keep blood sugars well-controlled through a healthy, managed diet.

Don’t miss the next post in the two part series: three more ways your diet during pregnancy can help your child from a higher I.Q. to even fostering a taste for vegetables!

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The hardest battle to avoid is one brought on by your own expectations. It’s pretty normal for us to want our efforts to be appreciated. We moms (and dads who cook) often prepare meals out of a desire to nurture our loved ones. When that effort is rebuked, we can feel rejected.

First, it’s not you! Keep in mind that your tiny food critic just ate two-week old Cheerios off the floor — the ones the dog may or may not have missed. You did not get snubbed by Top Chef judges.

This one was the hardest battle for me, too. I needed to let go of the idea that my child would love every dish I created on the first try. That’s just not how kids are wired. It only took me a couple hundred “orange” recipes to figure that one out!

Simply cook healthy, delicious foods. Try some of the strategies in this series to help with particular battles. Prepare one meal for the whole family, and try to only introduce that one new recipe at a time with familiar favorites on the menu, too.

Chances are when your toddler sees everyone enjoying the new recipe without him, he’ll eventually decide to try it as well.

A few ways to avoid more battles:

• Encourage, but don’t force a try. With other foods available, you won’t have to stress over whether or not your child is eating.
• If a battle of wills is at the root of the conflict, try these tactics to defuse the control issues.
• Enjoy your dinner — and show it. You cannot force a child to eat. You can, however, entice a child to want to eat what you are enjoying yourself.
• Make a point to enjoy the experience as a family. For me, this meant letting my child feed me her foods, too. All the slobbery bits and early mush, er, foods. Still, I’d say it was worth it to take one for the team if it made trying new foods desirable and fun for my child.
• Don’t fix a separate meal. This is a bad habit to start and once started, your child will continue to expect a short order kitchen.
• Don’t limit your menu to “kid food.” Kids ate the same meal as their parents since the dawn of families. It’s only in the last fifty years that processed food marketers have offered unhealthy alternatives under the guise of “kid-friendly.” However, that limited palate of foods and menu centered on low-nutrition foods high in fat, salt and added sugars is anything but “friendly.”

Now, enjoy your dinner.

Texture was an unexpected learning for me. When I look back on the whole of Battle Orange, the number of recipes and the lengths I went to, I have to shake my head and sigh. One recipe solved the whole thing. One.

I decided to make sweet potato fries, baked, to go with a lean burger recipe. I love sweet potato fries and was really making these for myself. Imagine my shock as I watched my kid eat one, two, four helpings of that orange food.

Then the one thing I had missed finally came to me! Texture! My child also would not eat mashed potatoes and other mashed foods. It had little to do with orange, other than the first orange dishes I tried shared that same soft texture. I finally understood why she would eat some orange recipes and not others. Texture.

These days, I avoid a lot of the mashed vegetable recipes, or fix them for myself and my spouse — knowing they will probably be refused by the kiddo. I’m okay with this. A lot of kids have even more extreme reactions to textures. For those kids, some of these tips may work:

• Try a vegetable both cooked and raw where possible. Some kids love crunch, some don’t.
• For kids who have issues even eating fruit, try recipes where the texture is extra kid-friendly like smoothies and popsicles.
• Try to prepare green vegetables like broccoli and green beans to a “tender crisp” point and no more. This texture offers the best flavor and crunch.
• Explore recipes that leverage the textures your kid will eat. Expand from here as your kids gets older and past his pickiest phase.
• When you are stumped by a food behavior, sometimes the issue is not what you think. I thought orange was the problem, not texture! Explore all the tips in the series sooner rather than later so you don’t end up preparing, say, 200 lbs. of winter squash before you solve it!

I’ll admit it. I used to think I hated spinach. My stepmom would fix frozen spinach, boiled, and served with cider vinegar. It was dark, greenish black, mushy and bore no resemblance to the original vegetable at all. I was never a picky eater, but I would not touch the stuff.

Then one day, she fixed spinach salad. And it was good. A light went on and suddenly I realized the difference between not liking a recipe versus not liking a vegetable. When the Battle of Orange Food began, I applied this knowledge with abandon. Our little family had pumpkin pancakes, soups, entrees, rice and pasta dishes, cookies, bread, pie, baked, roasted, steamed. But not raw — at least not with pumpkins. As I tried new and different approaches, my batting average began to creep up, too. More and more recipes were tried and even liked.

Here’s how you can apply creativity and variety to better your child’s odds for liking a new vegetable:

• Avoid the canned varieties. Fresh or frozen vegetables taste better and sweeter. Ever had canned asparagus? Enough said.
• Try variations with both the plain vegetable steamed and roasted plus a simple topping or sauce and dishes where the vegetable is one of many flavors. Some kids don’t like casseroles or too many elements in a dish.
• Incorporate the vegetable into different types of dishes and courses. The more opportunities to try a new vegetable and greater percentage of healthy dishes in a day increase your odds of success.
• Use favorite ingredients and types of food to help sell the new vegetable. If pasta is your child’s favorite, try a recipe that incorporates pasta. Or a bit of cheese, or a pizza.
• Stop and remember your own experiences as a child. What did you hate trying and why? Apply that experience to changing the way you serve vegetables to your family.
• Never overcook vegetables, especially green ones. This can make them bitter, mushy or exaggerate some of the off flavors cole crops like Brussels sprouts, kale or cauliflower get when overcooked.
• This won’t work when your child is young, but as she gets into grade school, you can ask her if she likes the new recipe and if not, explain that it’s the recipe and you are happy to try new ways to prepare the food. I have pulled out cookbooks and gone through the pages with my child and had her choose ways to prepare foods that she would enjoy trying. We made a list together and have enjoyed the new kitchen adventure.