Taste buds from Toddler to Teen Ager. Tastes Change.

Last post, I wrote about finding the "real" vegetables because I think that vegetables have the best of what we need for growing and healthy living, especially for kids.  I was looking for five vegetables for my kids to eat that they like.

Well the truth is a bit more complicated.  Of course.  Because some kids are really picky eaters and some aren't.  But the thing is that many of them will grow into being a picky eater  and then grow out of being a picky eater.   Here is the story.

I did some more reading on the subject of tastes between kids and adults,  because I think adults can "stand" more tastes where as kids can not.  Ever try giving a pepper mint or even just some mint to a toddler?  ouch.  Why do we have to buy two types of toothpaste, one for us grown ups and one for the kids?  Because the kids really cant stand the grown up tooth paste.  It burns them.  My 4 year old can barely take the taste of her kids tooth paste.

Well naturally because of the taste buds.  Kids have as many as 30 000 taste buds on their tongues.  Adults more like 10 000 (other numbers quoted have been 10 000 taste buds in children and 5000 in adults).  In fact super taster adults have more taste buds left on their tongue and they can detect minute changes in ingredients and can not "take" hyped up food.  They prefer played down, milder tastes, just like kids, because they have more taste buds.  People and kids who have more taste buds have more of an intense reaction to all foods.  Ever taste breast milk?  It is rather boring and even watery or ... but to a new born it is enough.  For them it even has the taste of vanilla.   

  Many articles mention that kids and toddlers are "sensitive" or just don't like bitter tastes.    "Bitter" is an acquired taste which usually doesn't come until the twenties.  Bitter can be akin to the taste of poison to kids.  This makes it difficult to feed the veggies because most veggies aren't high on the sugar tasting content, and often bitter.  My littlest girl wont eat a carrot.  Spinach, forget it for all of them.  Sweet taste doesn't overwhelm their taste buds and is also associated with good memories.

Babies will eat a lot more things, mostly mashed up, but they become more limited after about 18 months (I am trying to find the source for this comment, I did read it).  Then they may turn into the picky eaters which will drive you crazy for the next.... um... about ten years.

But hold on, and keep the faith because many of the writings say that when the kids start to become teenagers, they lose their taste for the ultra sweet stuff of youth and start to venture out even to the bitter edge of the galaxy, though maybe not so willingly.  This is when your kids will turn back to vegetables and give them another try.  I remember how my sister when she became a teenager she got so turned on to carrots that in fact she started turning orange in her hands and extremes.  Seriously.

The problem is that we also associate taste and good taste with good memories.  So, if you were nagging your kids for ten years to eat their veggies, by the time they actually WANT to eat their veggies they will have only bad memories of vegetables and still wont want to eat them, even if now they might have developed a taste for them.

This is like an epiphany for me.  I have to lay off the nagging and make sure I don't give a negative memory association with vegetables.  This puts things in a different light.  I may even stop urging them to eat vegetables altogether and let them eat what they want... Maybe.  At any rate, this is a game changer for me and I still have to mull it over in my head about how to tackle this in light of my new information.  My daughter who is very sensitive and doesn't like carrots might even be a super taster and we don't know it.

The best advice I read was, even if your kids don't like many of the things, or healthy eating now, just keep trying with them.  And keep setting a good example.  If they see you eating a salad every day, it may take a while, but maybe by the time they are a teenager they might start eating a salad every day too.  You cant tell now when they are 4 or 7, you might get really frustrated and depressed trying to get them to eat "good food", but it may pay off, uh, later.  You just have to eat what you know is good and healthy and they (hopefully) will come around to your line of thinking too.  In other words, STAY PATIENT.  It will work out.  Probably. 

source links for information on kids and taste buds.
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/menus/kids-taste-buds.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/jan/29/changing-tastes-food-and-aging

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/difference-between-taste-buds-adults-kids-27362.html

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050211084620.htm

Was listening to Death and Vanilla while writing this:
https://www.facebook.com/Death-And-Vanilla-114660564210/

Check them out.  Sort of psychedelic retro chill out.  Reissues coming out in May.  Vinyl will be available at http://www.maximum.cz/

Will the real vegetables please stand up and be eaten

Fully realizing that fruits and vegetables are perhaps the most important things to eat every day and especially for kids, I started to wage a battle several weeks ago to get more fruits and vegetables in my kids diets and tummies.  Now, you may say, "well no sheet Sherlock, why so late?"  And in fact I do plead a bit guilty and have to say that I was put off and found it hopeless for about a year trying to get my kids eating in this direction.  My older girl used to eat things as squash and zucchini and everything, but seemed to change when she saw her younger sister wasn't eating any of those things.  And her younger sister was adamant about not eating any of those "veggies".  Being the dictator she is, I have to say, we kind of gave in to her and didn't push her.

Until this year when her older sister started learning about the food groups in school and thank goodness the teacher was pushing vegetables and fruits on them.  My daughter came home one day from school and said "Daddy we should be eating FIVE servings of fruits and vegetables every day!  I want to do that."  OK, I said.  Well, which fruits and vegetables do you like to eat?  Lets name five in each group at least and I will make sure you have those vegetables and fruits to eat as many days as possible.

Finding enough fruits she liked was easy.  Sort of.  She loves grapefruits and she will eat apples, so it is no problem most days to at least have apples at home.  And I try to keep grapefruits on stock for their extended growing season.  They do have a long season and they come in in the winter when most other things are out.

But the real problem was naming enough vegetables.
"OK, so name five vegetables you like and will eat,"  I said.
"Um... carrots,  corn.... um.... peas...."
"You really like peas?  Are you sure?  I don't know if you like them so much?"
"I do I do," she, said.  "Its my sister who wont eat peas, but maybe wait and see if we have enough others to put them in, maybe I don't have to eat them.   Lets see what else?"

  A minute or two pause at this point.    "Um.... carrots, peas, corn.  Um  olives, I like olives, green olives.  And also beans, but only those red beans, I think.  And pickles too.  How many is that? carrots one, peas two, corn three, beans four, olives five.  Five and then also pickles.  That is a lot already.  More than five,"  she said satisfied.

My wife came into the room and had heard and said, "corn isn't a vegetable.  Its a cereal." Oh.  Both my daughter`s and my jaw dropped a little in sadness.

"Oh and I really like corn too.  Cant it be a vegetable?  Maybe in the summertime anyway?  I eat it everyday in the summer," my daughter asked.  But no,  the powers that be already designated corn as a cereal.  harumph.

"And olives are not a vegetable.  They grow on trees," my wife continued.
"Well, then they are a fruit," I said.
"Nope, not either.  They are ... like an oil.  Beans are a legume.  Not a vegetable either.  And actually peas are either legumes or fruits, but more likely legumes.  Legumes are not so good because your body has trouble digesting the whole thing.  Like the skin of corn,  you cant digest it, break it down.  So it just goes through you.  Peas too.  There is some controversy now whether legumes are good or bad.  But mostly it seems like some book sellers say they are bad in order to sell you their book and or diet.  Though Legumes DO have an upside and downside. " (Here is a fair article on the subject)


"Um....  What about the green ness of peas.  It must be worth something.?"
"They just aren`t vegetables.  But...They are very good.  Look at this."

So what was left on our list?
"Oh, pickles are a fruit too.   But they are sterilized, so even though they are still good, they aren't as good as say cucumbers, but which are still..... fruits.  But they aren't bad. You shouldn't bug out on pickled foods (though sometimes Daddy does in fact do just this with his pickles and pickled beets)"

"Fruits?"

"Yes, fruits.  Seeds inside, make them a fruit.  Same as tomatoes, eggplant and avocados."

This was getting very difficult.  This left us with...... carrots.  One vegetable my daughter liked.  But actually there is controversy whether olive is a fruit or that oil thinger,  but it is not a vegetable, but maybe we could count it as a fruit anyway.

"Don't you like any other VEGETABLES?", I asked my daughter. "Cauliflowers?  Broccoli? Beets? Spinach?"
"No, no, no and big very big no to spinach."   ..............



Carrots.
"I like peppers too.  But only the yellow peppers.  I don't like the green peppers."
"Well, this is fine," said my wife, "but technically peppers are fruits too. "

We were stumped.

Carrots.

"Well carrots are very very good for you.  And you can get them year round as they are root vegetables.  So, lets have a carrot party every day," I offered.
My daughter looked, sad, dejected and skeptical.

"OK,  lets throw in the peppers as vegetables too."

Well, technicalities aside, my daughter IS eating healthier.  We have vitamin bedtime snack where she eats a grapefruit or, a carrot.  My other daughter eats a banana or apple.  She too has become a bit, a little bit more of a healthier eater.  But I really wanted my older daughter to get more veggies as typically the fruits have more of the natural sugars and vegetables are pure wholesome goodness (unless you boil them which zaps their nutrients out), but I guess until her taste buds open up a bit more and accept cabbage, broccoli and ugh.. spinach, we have a lopsided fruit and vegetable menu with more fruits and um, carrots for the vegetable.

Well, as long as she  doesn't start turning orange, I guess we are heading in the right direction.  I don't know why I still feel dejected myself.  I guess I thought vegetables were the holy grail of healthy eating and my daughter still is not eating so many of them.

But only technically.  Lets just call pickles, peppers and olives vegetables for argument and good health`s sake. That is at least four vegetables she can eat during the day.  

Thank you.
(a good simple article on what is a fruit and what is a vegetable.  But peas and olives are often put in another group, although they are called fruits in this article)

Upstairs Downstairs

My wife started a new job two weeks ago from this writing.  I have to say I think it is working out comparatively well for us on task distribution.  I had a lot of troubles with my business in the last year, but my wife had more time to take care of the kids and be the main parent.  I didn't like this situation, of course not, but things kept happening beyond my control, and the general condition of the business, which WAS within my control to change,  was and still is, not up to speed.  At least one problem of getting a good worker seems to have been taken care of.  This enables me to stay at home more and take over parenting duties, or at least increase my percentage from its very low amount in the past year.

So now I am more able to stay at home or be the main parent during the day and be "Daddy 40% or More" again.  (Granted my wife still does the cooking as my skills in that department are far below hers and definitely lacking. )  And this is exactly what has happened.

Just in time. In the last two weeks, I have taken one child to the skin doctor (I always panic a little when I have to take them to a doctor), come home early on a Friday at 1pm, gone to a kids exercise carnival day, and for the past couple work days continuing the week of March 21st,  I have to be at home all the time for a sick child.  Its like a return to when she was two years old.  It is a lot more stay at home work.

I am not complaining,  I am just worrying, as I tend to do.  Before I was worrying about not being a good Father.  Now, I worry about my business.  It still needs a strong hand to get it up to full power.  Maybe it needs a stronger hand than I have.  At any rate, I feel like the Owl in Arnold Loebs` children's`story in the Owl series called "Upstairs Downstairs".   Owl wanted to know what was going on downstairs when he was upstairs, so he would go back downstairs.  But then he wanted to know how it was upstairs and he would run back upstairs.  He wanted to be in both places at once.  Thus he began running back and forth, trying to run ever faster to be in both places at the same time.  If you are an adult you naturally laugh at Owl for being ridiculous and trying to accomplish the impossible, but one fails to look at his own life and see that he/she actually does the same as owl does, knowingly or not.  I guess that is what I am doing.  Trying to be both upstairs and downstairs at the same time.

"Owl ran upstairs and downstairs all evening."

 

           

In the last troublesome year, I felt bad for working sometimes even six days a week because it meant coming home late in the evening and not contributing much to my kids well being or parenting.  Now, I am home three work days a week in the last two weeks and I worry how I can afford it with my business. I am doing the same thing as Owl: running upstairs and worrying about what is happening downstairs and running back downstairs.   Maybe that is the natural dilemma of being  a "Daddy 40% or more stay at home father".  You are either upstairs or downstairs but you want to be in both places at once.

Accomplishing the impossible, well, is impossible.  Not going to happen.   Silly Owl.  Silly Daddy.  

In the end Owl is tired out from his running upstairs and downstairs and sits down on the tenth step of the stairs exactly in the middle.  I only hope that is what will happen to me too.  But I am not there yet.  I am still running upstairs and downstairs.       

*Disclosure.  I received no compensation from anybody in writing this post.  I merely like the story and the book and thought it was a good example of my situation.  I have no connections with the author or anyone connected to the printing or distributing or selling of this book.  

Fear of Travel, and Sledding (again)

I was very hurt by the comment of a close relation this last week.  The person said the reason I couldn't remember many of the towns I had spent Christmas or Spring break holidays in was because I didn't care and I would rather have sat on my butt then get out of town.  The person said my biggest movement as far as taking the kids somewhere was going down the street with them to the playground.  

While any defense I  put up will sound like me deflecting my problems on someone or something else and not taking responsibility for my shortcomings,  I guess I have to say SOMETHING on my behalf.  So here goes: 

 1) I do organize and take my kids on a summer vacation every year which involves travelling half way around the world, three airplane landings, three or four customs crossings and 15 to 18 hours in travel,  WITH ONLY ME handling both kids and me.  This should erase any comment of the sort that I sit on my butt.  But in fact it doesn't.  So here goes reason number two.  

2) I am really scared bejeebers shi.. less of organizing and carrying out any trips longer than the walk down the street to the playground.  And my usual method of explanation for this is that I have some disease, some phobia which is triggered by the thought of moving farther than three blocks down the street.  Yes, it is not my fault because I have some deficiency in my DNA as I also said in this post.   I have not found the exact weak link at this time, but sometime in the next months or in the summer I will be doing the research.   I will find a plausible culprit for my fear of movement.   I am sure it is due to faulty DNA.  

That is a rather lengthy introduction, explanation for the purpose of this post.  Namely, in the last week once again my wife and kids were at an easily forgotten by me town of spring break snow sports pleasure type.  They went the Saturday before and I was to come on Wednesday because of work.  By Sunday I was going to the bathroom every hour in shaky anticipation of having to take a bus to their location.  A two hour bus ride.  My wife wrote down all the details of which bus and platform and exact times, everything.  But by Monday I couldn't sleep, and by Tuesday I was considering a supply of methadone which might either get me to the location in a total "I don't care, where am I?, whats happening?" manner or would have put me to sleep for two days and I could have feigned sickness and forgotten the whole trip.  But I am not a drugs type of guy and.... the day, the bus ride, the travel time came.  

Lord have mercy, hallelujah, I made it.  Exactly the way it was supposed to take place down to the transfer on the bus and the exact exit from the bus at 14:53 to standing location 10 feet (3.3 meters) from where my wife was parked.  A...effing...mazing.   

Well fine, yes, but that wasn't even half the real Cape Fear, Friday the 13th, that I would still have to face.  (cue to theme music from TV serial "The Twilight Zone")    

The Scream (in public domain)

Remember just a few weeks ago in fact I wrote this post?  I wrote about the sledding path that I went down with my daughter and it was like a sledding path to hell and I worried that either myself or my little daughter of 1.5 years wouldn't survive the end of this "excursion"?  Well.... I was going to have to sled THIS SAME PATH.   AHHHHHHHHHHHHH, let me out of here, please please, Lord, don't make me do it again.  But I was going to have to do that same path.  

I told you in that post, I still hadn't gotten over that trip three years after it had happened.  For sure this time it would be the death of me and the path would finish in the bowels of hell on a path of gravel and fire.  

Friday the fateful day came, and, well, many people wonder what their last day on earth will be like.  I knew.  This was it.  The hours, the minutes, the rays of last sunshine were ticking by and mile by mile, kilometer by kilometer the journey, nay, the road itself of my life was coming up to its, pardon the pun, dead end.  

We took a snow bus up to what seemed like the top of the tower of Babel.  Or up to the top of a mountain which had its peak in Heaven by gum.  A direct path from Heaven down to Hell.  The snow was whipping.  And even though the sky was a low hanging thick grey and the trees were standing like huge Druid Priests, for me it was as bright as the white light in Lou Reeds song of the same name.  I looked up to the heavens and thought I saw angels, heard the horn of Jericho blowing, if I have the correct metaphor.  OK,  here goes, I will lay it all down for my family, great Father that I am.  Someone put in a good word for me after I have left the building.     

Then what happened?  Well, it was a small Deus ex Machina. My littlest daughter refused to go down with me on the sled.  She wanted to go with Mommy.  And she wouldn't stop crying until she did.  Luckily my older daughter being the good sport she is, acquiesced to go down with Daddy.   This was all fine with me because I really did not want to repeat the earlier incident and sled with my youngest daughter.  Although I feigned hurt that she didnt want to be with me.  At this moment I actually did not care if it would save my life.   Would this change of passengers perhaps save my life?

We started down the hill from the top of the Tower of Babel, or maybe what I said in the other post was southern Poland, with me sitting behind.  It started getting steep and we picked up speed.  I put my boots down and the snow sprayed into our faces and I couldn`t see.  My daughter screamed and yelled, "Daddy stop".  And I got us stopped over at the side of the path.  I said I knew how to slow us down better and she wasn't afraid to start up again.  We started picking up speed and I sat up straight, put my boots down at the side of me in the back and leaned forward.  That slowed us down without the snow in our faces.  But it started getting steeper.... and... but then we had to stop to cross the street.  Three times we had to cross the street.  My daughter always raising her voice, "OK, Daddy, slowly, we have to slow down."  There were signs saying to slow down in three different languages which meant we must be going through the Czech Republic to Slovakia, exiting Poland.  Then our descent began with a sharp turn and then a steep steep decline.  We must be getting into the outer shell of Hell now.  Down faster,  "Daddy, slow us down," and I leaned forward more and actually slowed us down to a comfortable pace.  "That is a good speed isn't it?" I asked my daughter and she was comfortable with it.  Then more speed but on a straightaway so I let ourselves pick up speed by leaning back.  Past the farmhouse where the two devils lived with the invisible cloak. And then more straightaway. Faster, faster, faster pussycat.  I heard a scream.   Was that on of the devils herding me into Hell or was it in fact, MY own voice? Whooooooooo hooooooooooooo. 

And then we started to slow down.  The path leveled off and, wonder of wonders we had to get off and pull the sled a ways.   We got back on, but it turned out to be only for another 100 meters of hill.  Then, well, there was no more hill.  We walked a final 100 meters to the finish line where the bus would pick us up.  "Is that the finish?" I asked.  Yes, said my wife who had gone down ahead of us and had gotten there first.  That`s it.   What was all the fuss about then?  What was I thinking?  What was I worried about?      

Who wants to go again?   "I do I do I do."   That was also my voice.  


The second trip down was a piece of cake and great fun.  My older daughter wanted to go with me again and I knew how to slow us down with no problems.  In fact I let us go faster because I knew how to control it better and I knew the track.  At one point however, we came very close to flying off the track into the woods, very close, but we didn't.  And on the straightaway at the end, I lay down flat to pick up the most velocity.  Speed demons we were.     

 

  The only thing is, if you/I think this will correct my faulty DNA which causes me to have panic routines if I have to go on a trip farther than down the street to the playground..................  probably not.  But we can always hope and dream.  And maybe little by little, we get better.  Maybe.  


 Was listening to this while writing.  Well I neednt indeed.