Don't Baby Your Babies. Let Them Take Their Lumps.

Texture, or more accurately, the way toddlers respond to texture, is one of the potential pitfalls parents face when transitioning infants to solids.

But avoiding texture is the wrong way to go.

In my last post I discussed how the French have an advantage in the vegetable department because they introduce their infants to a wide range of vegetables from a very early age.

The French strategy—both introducing lots of different vegetables and switching up which vegetables are offered from day-to-day—exposes infants to a wide range of flavors.  Read Early Vegetable Variety: The French Advantage.

But the French strategy does more: It also exposes infants to a wide range of textures.

Variety—in both taste and texture— isn't just the spice of life; it's the key to teaching your tots to eat right.

The more varied textures you expose your infants to the better they’ll eat.

Taste and texture have a symbiotic relationship.

• Flavor variety leads to texture acceptance.
• Texture variety leads to flavor acceptance.  

Think of taste and texture like a food relay race: You need to optimize both racers in order to get to the finish line fast.

Make it your goal to vary the taste and texture of the food you provide as often as you can—both from day-to-day and over the course of a single day.

Here’s the study:

• Take a bunch of 12-month-old babies.
• Cook up some carrots so they’re nice and soft.
• Puree some of the carrots.
• Chop some of the carrots.
• Dish up the carrots (pureed on one day, chopped on another).
• See who eats what.
• Figure out why.

Some of what the researchers discovered was pretty obvious:

• All the babies ate more carrots when they were pureed than when they were chopped.
• Babies who had more teeth were more willing to eat the chopped carrots.

These findings fall under the category of, "We needed researchers to tell us that?"

Some of what the researchers discovered wasn’t so obvious. 

 Look at who consumed more of the chopped carrots:

• Infants who were accustomed to eating a wide variety of foods.
• Children who started early with mashed foods, and who had frequent exposures to chopped versions of different foods.
• Children whose main meal on the day of the study was either chopped or lumpy, as opposed to pureed.

The researchers concluded: The more familiar infants are with different textures, especially with chopped foods, the more likely they are to eat (and like) chopped carrots.

The researchers also concluded that:

"Infants with more experiences with different textures seem to be more confident in handling more complex textures and are less likely to reject these foods."

Many parents are reluctant to give their infants chopped foods because they worry about their children choking.

And that’s a reasonable concern.  You don't have to compromise your feeding goals, however, to keep your kids alive. You can serve mashed, chopped and lumpy foods safely.

In this study, the researchers thoroughly cooked both the pureed and the chopped carrots, and the chopped pieces were about ¼ inch in size. This complies with the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that to prevent choking parents leave bites no bigger than ½ inch in size. 

Other parents steer clear of challenging textures because their kids reject them.

But that's the wrong approach.  Repeatedly serving textures infants prefer reinforces their limited palates. It doesn't move them along.

Even if your child has a physical or development issue which makes tackling textures tough, you still have to introduce a variety of textures. Just see a professional. Read: What can you do about texture issues and My Child Only Eats Cheerios and Puffs: When to Seek Medical Help.

Kids who reject challenging textures need more exposure to them, not less, because they need to learn how to handle textures they find tough.

• Make textural changes slowly.  Mix purees with mashes so they're half and half. Put teeny lumps into sauces. 
• Serve small portion sizes so the challenge is doable.
• Deliberately vary the textures you serve.  An easy way to do this is to vary the brands you buy (read How Brands Bite You in the Butt!) and vary the kinds of foods you serve (read Falafel for Breakfast).
• If your child is having trouble, make smaller textural changes, but don't abandon your efforts.

The longer you wait to introduce lumpy, bumpy, and chopped up foods, the harder it becomes.

In another study, children who were introduced to lumpy foods before they were 6 months old:

• Ate a wider variety of foods.
• Moved on to family (or table) food more quickly.
• Were less likely to be considered picky or difficult eaters.

The message is clear: stop babying your babies.

Instead, let them take their lumps.  It's only through exposure to textural variety that your kids will learn to eat a wide variety of foods. And that's the habit you want to teach your kids for a lifetime of healthy eating.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

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Sources:

Blossfield, I., A. Collins, M. Kiely, and C. Delahunty. 2007. “Texture Preferences of 12-Month-Old Infants and the Role of Early Experiences.” Food Quality and Preference 18: 396-404.

Northstone, K., P. Emmett, F. Nethersole, and A. L. S. P. A. C. S. Team. 2001. “The Effect of Age of Introduction to Lumpy Solids on Foods Eaten and Reported Feeding Difficulties At 6 and 15 Months.” Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics 14: 43-54.

Kid Eats Q&A: What can you do about texture issues? Some kids seem to eat with their eyes first.

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My most recent Huffington Post piece! Hey McDonald’s, How About Them Apples?

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Thanks to Melissa who posted this question about texture on my Facebook page.

Texture is a touchy topic. (Get it…Touchy!) Some toddlers seem to go gaga over the gooey (yogurt, apple sauce, even macaroni and cheese). Others go crazy for the crunchy (crackers, toast, nuggets).   It’s enough to make you nuts.

1) Rule out a physical or developmental problem.

The mechanics of eating are actually fairly complicated and there are lots of things that can go wrong. 

• If you have a child who prefers one kind of texture over another, seems to have trouble chewing foods, or in any other way indicates that there may be a problem and you should have an evaluation done.   Read My child only eats Cheerios and Puffs: When to seek medical help  

• On the other hand, if your child can master a range of foods (crackers, small bits of meat, and foods with mixed textures such as yogurt with blueberries) you’re probably dealing with a food preference or an eating habit.

2) Consider the possibility that your child has a texture habit, not a texture preference.

Parents look for rational reasons to explain their children’s eating patterns. 

• It’s understandable too: If you can figure out why your child eats the way he does, you have a better chance of producing meals he’ll eat.  Or so you think.

Looking for a rational reason to explain your toddler’s food preference is a waste of time.

• Young kids don’t have rational reasons for why they eat the way they do.  Reasons, yes.  Rational reasons no.

• Research shows that young kids don’t have stable food preferences, and that you have only a 50/50 shot at predicting what they’ll eat. No better than a coin toss.  Read You Can’t Feed Your Way Out of a Picky-Eating Problem.

Chances are your child has gotten into the habit of eating certain kind of foods.  

• And the habit causes your kid to select certain foods repeatedly. Every time this happens, the habit is reinforced and strengthened.

The problem is that eating habits masquerade as food preferences. 

• Once you get it into your head that your child doesn’t like, or won’t eat, certain kinds of food, it’s incredibly difficult to feed them to her—“It’s mean to make my kid eat food she doesn’t like.” So then you narrow the range of foods you provide and your child’s food restrictions are reinforced.  It’s a vicious cycle.

3) Introduce as much textural variation as your toddler can tolerate. Don’t expect your child to make big textural leaps. 

Stop thinking of foods primarily in terms of nutrients and start thinking of them in terms of texture. 

• Yogurt isn’t calcium and protein.  It’s soupy. It’s slurpy. It’s gooey. It’s great!

Then, consciously vary the textural characteristics of the food you offer your child. For some kids this is quite easy: Crunchy cereal at breakfast?  Serve gooey PB&J at lunch.  Smooth oatmeal at breakfast? Consider crunchy crackers at lunch. For more reluctant eaters you have to move more slowly:

• Incrementally expose your child to small textural changes.  Start with a puree of peas, then mix in one or two finely chopped peas, then move on to larger lumps, and bigger bumps.  Read about the process of slowly changing texture of food in For extreme fruit and vegetable avoiders…

• Introduce textural variety by switching up the brands that you buy.  The very characteristic that makes manufactured products successful—they are dependably the same every time you buy them—makes them lethal to the parent trying to expand a toddler’s textural tolerance.  Read How Brands Bite You in the Butt!

Remember to talk to your tot about your goals, your aspirations and the textural changes you’re making.  

• Kids, even young ones, need to be in the know. (You might as well be up front, you'll never be able to put one over on your little lovely anyway.)

4) Be brave. 

Serve more of what you want your child to eat. 

• Then be content even when he eats less than you would want.  If your tot tastes one bite of a new texture you have a reason to celebrate! I’m serious. One bite.

Finally, stop assuming you have to provide foods your kid will eat.

• Instead, start assuming it’s your kid’s job to start eating the foods you provide. 

• What if he doesn’t?  I’ll get to that in another next post. Until then, practice giving your child limited choices around meals and snacks —“Do you want yogurt or apples?”—but don’t cater to her demands.  Catering only teaches kids the habit of holding out.

Good luck and let me know how it goes!

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

How Brands Bite You in the Butt!

Kraft Macaroni ‘n Cheese.  Annie’s Bunnies.  Stonyfield Yogurt.  We love our brands.

Brands are a godsend.  They make shopping and cooking a snap, especially after you’ve found products your kids will happily eat.

But for parents trying to teach their kids about new foods, the miracle of manufacturing -- that food producers always turn out the exact same product (same taste, same texture, same look, same smell) -- is also a curse.   

When brand names become an eating habit, kids won’t accept even small variations in the foods they eat.

Giving kids who are reluctant to try new foods a Skippy Peanut Butter sandwich every day – because that’s the brand they demand -- is akin to parental suicide; it’s like begging your kids never to try anything new again.

The more your children expect blueberry yogurt to taste exactly like – and only like – the way Stonyfield makes their blueberry yogurt, the less open they are to foods that are different.

Does it matter if that’s how your kids relate to yogurt?  Not so much (although it might if they’re starving some afternoon and you find the local grocer is out of that kind of yogurt). But if you have children who only eat Tyson chicken nuggets, Polly-O cheese, and Eggo waffles, then the pattern of sameness is working against you.

See The Variety Masquerade for more on this.

If you hope that someday your children will try asparagus, salmon, or even a new kind of juice, you have to start by breaking the bonds your kids have to their beloved brands.

Work on getting your kids to eat orange and yellow cheese, to move beyond Skippy to Jif, and to embrace Keebler in addition to Nabisco.

If your children are attached to one brand of yogurt…

• Buy different flavors of the same brand.
• Buy different brands but stick to the same flavor.
• Transfer the yogurt to an unmarked container (tell your kids the container broke) and then gradually change the flavor over time by adding more and more of a different brand of yogurt.
• Make your own flavored yogurt by adding jam to plain yogurt.

And if your children are attached to a particular chicken nugget…

• Cut the nugget into different shapes so it starts to look different. (Let your children see you do this so they believe you that it’s the same kind of chicken.)
• Buy different shapes of the same chicken nugget brand.
• Mix-in pieces of a different brand of chicken nugget.

How readily your kids accept new foods is a reflection of the foods they’re exposed to on a regular and repeated basis – or their habits.  So mix it up for maximum success.

 ~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~