We have all had the experience of one of our children turning their noses up at something we put on their plates right?

And more than likely the food they made that “Mom, that looks disgusting” face at was probably one of the healthiest foods.

I’ve been there (and on occasion am still there), but I will say that my kids eat the strangest things! They fight about who gets the last spoon full of collard greens. They request vegetarian foods (and we are NOT vegetarians). And they eat vegetables (often raw) without me asking or putting it in front of them.

Sound like one of those ranch dressing commercial fantasy lands? Well it really can be YOUR reality! Wanna know how I got THIS to be my reality and experience the same pride (and relief) of seeing your kids actually enjoy foods that are nourishing their bodies?

I talk quite a bit about this picky eater topic in my ebook The Nourished Family: A Busy Mom’s Guide To Simple Low-Cost Organic Cooking and offer several tips there, but TODAY I’m going to give you one of my favorite tips. And this one is NOT in the book!

The key to getting your kids (and you) to eat more nutritious whole foods is TRAINING.

What do I mean by training? Let me explain.

When our children are about 6 months old and they are starting to get their first table foods, we begin to train their pallets.

If we give our infants and toddlers unprocessed, whole foods that don’t have a bunch of added sugar and salt, then as they grow up they will continue to appreciate the tastes of those simple unprocessed, good for them foods.

If, instead we give our infants and toddlers processed manufactured foods, then as they grow up they will continue to appreciate the tastes of processed, not so good for them foods!

Bottom line, what we start out feeding our kids as babies, they are likely to continue to eat as adults!

But what if you don’t have infants or toddlers any more and your kids are just not wanting to eat those roasted Brussels spouts.

Well that’s when RE-TRAINING comes in!

Everybody and every thing deserves a second chance – right!

There are two ways you can go about re-training your and your kids’ pallets.

The first way is to do a cold turkey detox, where you throw out all the processed junk in the house and replace it with all the good whole, nutritious foods you can find.  I don’t recommend doing this because what you’ll probably end up with is a bunch of kids that won’t eat anything AND you will be pulling your hair out trying to get ANY thing to go down.

The second way (and I do recommend this method) is to slowly transition out the junk and replace it with healthier options. So taking the candy out of the house and replacing it with honey covered almonds or apples with peanut butter on them.  Or at dinner time adding in a handful of kale greens to a pasta sauce you know your kids already like!

Remember, that we often need to taste a new thing several times before we actually decide to like it, so don’t give up on the first, second, or third try.

One more bonus Tip (and this one IS in the book)

Only prepare one meal for the whole family.

There was a time when I made 4 different breakfast meals to satisfy the taste buds of everyone in my house so I get it. We as moms often make accommodations for our children’s taste buds and stress ourselves out in the process.

So let everyone in the house know that mommy makes one meal! If they want to eat it GREAT, if they don’t…..well, I can almost guarantee that nobody will starve themselves.

To make this work that means YOU have to stay consistent and stick to your guns!

I hope these tips will help you deal with your own picky eaters.

I talk a lot more about how to picky eater proof your house AND give you 2 months worth of simple, kid-friendly recipes to help you do that in my ebook. Click here to learn more and get your copy!