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?