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Young children are notorious for being picky eaters. Understandably, parents often worry about balanced nutrition when dealing with a child who refuses to eat anything more than wieners and ketchup. However, a certain degree of pickiness is perfectly normal in early childhood. Parents should not be overly concerned about it. Some children go through phases of food restriction and repugnance because they are hypersensitive to different food textures, smells, unusual appearances, and of course strong tastes.

Although temporary food aversions are relatively normal and most likely will not have any long-lasting effects on your child's health, you do not want pickiness to carry on for extended periods of time. With this in mind, there are a few ways to get around a picky child's delicate palate.

~ Disguise Strong Tasting Vegetables ~

Use a food processor to puree vegetables, particularly strong tasting ones such as broccoli, cauliflower, turnips and brussel sprouts. You can then try adding the puree to tomato based pasta sauces or mashed potatoes. Even finicky eaters will usually eat spaghetti, so disguising strong tastes and different textures in the sauce is a great way to get those vegetables into your kids. Mashing up a small amount of turnip and cauliflower and adding tthis mixture to mashed potatoes is an easy way to get those nutrient rich vegetables into your kids.

~ Offer Dips with cut up Fruits and Vegetables ~

In addition to pasta sauce, incorporating pureed vegetables into dips can also be tried. Julienne the vegetables your child will tolerate, such as sweet carrots or celery sticks, and serve with smooth textured dips that have the pureed vegetables mixed in. Celery sticks are also a great choice for kids because they can be doctored up with peanut butter and chocolate chip, cream cheese or other spreads your child does like. To get a rich array of fruits into children, try offering different varieties cut up into small chunks and shapes with a dip of vanilla or fruit flavored yogurt mixed with whipping cream.

~ Garlic ~

To get the health benefits of garlic into your picky eater, boil several cloves in water before adding vegetables or when making soup. The boiling process will take care of its strong taste and kids will not even know they are eating it.

~ Present Food with your Discerning Food Critic in Mind ~

Another way to try and get foods into your picky eater is by making food fun. Use cookie cutters to cut out whole grain sandwiches and pancakes

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