We live in beef country. Not only do we live in beef country, but the kids’ grandfather raises cattle and we buy all our beef from him. It’s just about the only meat we eat in this house. We might have the occasional pork or chicken, but those have to be purchased at the store, and we’re spoiled by the unadulterated, fresh taste of homegrown beef. Steaks, roast, hamburger, soup bones, ribs . . . we have all of them in plenty.
So what’s a mom to do when her son refuses to eat meat of any kind, with the exception of chicken nuggets and hot dogs (if those even qualify as “meat”)? I don’t know if it’s the texture or the taste, but Cody has a huge revulsion to meat, particularly beef. On rare occasions, we can get him to eat a cheeseburger at a fast-food restaurant, but at home, he absolutely refuses to eat meat.
His dad, a staunch born and bred carnivore with little sympathy toward a would-be vegetarian, makes Cody try meat sometimes, perhaps hoping that enough exposure might convert him. Sometimes, Cody gags dramatically in an attempt to swallow the offending food; others, he chews it with a face similar to that of someone who just sucked on a lemon.
My sister recently sent the family an email saying research has shown that a distaste for meat can actually be inherited. If that’s true, Cody’s meat aversion does make sense. My sister never cared for it either, and now that she creates her own dinner menus, her husband is excited to come to our house for visits so he can have a hunk of beef for a change.
So the question is, should I make Cody keep trying meat or just let his vegetarian tendencies take precedence? I do feel sympathy for him after hearing stories from my sister, and I don’t want to push something on him that he genuinely doesn’t like. At the same time, you always hear that if you let a kid try a food often enough, they’ll eventually like it. My tendency is to not make him eat it and to let him have something else in its place (peanut butter, for instance). After all, I don’t exactly enjoy watching him gag.
I’m curious: What do you think? Would you skip the meat or keep on trying?
My kids like some meat but not others. And some days they won’t eat what they usually like. Sigh….
I’d rejoice, though, if my kids preferred veggies to meat. They’re cheaper and healthier, for the most part. My younger son (age 2) likes rice and beans and some veggies. The last time I served him popcorn chicken, though, he sucked off the ketchup and wouldn’t eat the chicken.
I have an aversion to the idea of throwing away food, and I also have an aversion to making different meals at the same time, just to accommodate everybody’s preferences. I try to take preferences into account, but I’m not going to make 4 meals for 4 people. What I do is try to give the kids something from every dish, but the largest portion is what they prefer. If they absolutely *hate* something, I generally won’t force them to eat it (hey, I can’t stand mustard! or a lot of other things, for that matter); but they have to eat everything else.
What I’d do is if there is a known aversion to something is either not put it on his plate at all, or to give him 1-2 bites of it. My 3-y/o son, though, seems to have an aversion to most food except a few favorites (pizza, PB&J, macaroni & cheese — you know, “healthy” food), so I do make him eat what I fix, to enlarge his palate. He’s doing better about eating, too — even though I know it’s something he doesn’t prefer, he’s now eating it without complaining… too much, anyway.
Well, I think you know how I feel about it. Let the poor kid eat what he wants. If he comes around later in life, great. But in a way it can be a double standard–does he like tomatoes, for example? Do you make him try them every so often just to see if he still doesn’t like them, or do you figure that he may like them as an adult with an older palate…or not?
I still won’t eat beef, but Derek did get some steaks for a birthday present and I’ve discovered they’re easy to put on the grill along with veggies and then cook some rice in the kitchen. So that’s our beef solution for now, until we come to visit you again.