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Cooking With Kids: Eat Your Veggies
If I were you I'd keep your daughter away from asparagus. Although she wasn't always this way, mine, at age 14, eats most of the asparagus I cook, especially if I grill it.
Cooking With Kids: Eat Your Veggies
Actually, I had an early aversion to red meat, but I, like many children, feared many, many vegetables. I blame this on the 70s-era tendency to either overcook everything or serve it completely raw. Either one could inspire morbid fear in even the most hardcore vegetable lover. Also, I partially blame the 70s era style of parenting that said not to force any foods on your children that they rejected.
For about 4-5 years I ate few vegetables other than corn, potatoes, onions, and well-disguised broccoli (80s style quiche, cheese sauce), along with the occasional thousand-island drenched iceberg lettuce. Ah, and artichokes. I could be convinced to eat steamed artichokes, but probably because we could drench it in lemon butter.
However, starting in my teenage years I started to realize that not all vegetables were terrible, and cafeteria meat in the Midwest generally is, so by 19, I was a full-blown vegetarian. Now I'll eat anything, including brussels sprouts, as long as they're prepared decently. And most restaurants have learned how, and even some home cooks have figured it out.
Cooking With Kids: Eat Your Veggies
I've liked most veggies growing up - other than brussel sprouts, eww.
Also, this is so obvious, but steamed broccoli with cheese sauce (actual cheese sauce, not cheez whiz) is the BEST THING EVER.
I do remember making some odd Like / Dislike decisions about fruit when I was around 4-5. The first time I tried cantaloupe, I was unsure - do I like this, or not? My young brain wanted to categorize this as a strict Like or Dislike and had no room or patience for "well it's not my favorite melon but it's okay". After trying a bit more, I decided that next to the pure deliciousness of watermelon it just wasn't up to par, and mentally filed it under Dislike. I actually avoided eating cantaloupe for years after that due to what amounted to an administrative misfiling.
I have no idea how much this anecdote generalizes to all kids, but who knows - maybe veggies are just something she doesn't put in her Top 10 list right now and later on she'll realize that they taste great even if she wouldn't pick them over lobster or a sampling of chocolates.
Cooking With Kids: Eat Your Veggies
I second the idea that your daughter may like asparagus more as she ages.
My palate changed drastically during my teen years. Certain foods made me totally nauseous as a child [cilantro and lox being two of them] but are now necessary staples.
Give me cilantro or give me death!
Cooking With Kids: Eat Your Veggies
Has she helped you prepare the asparagus yet? You could have her chop some for a risotto. Even if she picked them out, she would become accustomed to the flavor in the dish. Maybe growing some in your yard would help! Also, try putting out the veggies during the witching hour, right before dinner. You'd be surprised what kids will eat when truly hungry.
I hated most vegetables as a child but that is because they were of the nasty, frozen variety. I didn't get to taste fresh ones til I was older and liked them immediately..
Cooking With Kids: Eat Your Veggies
I'm 22, have been dating my bf for 2.5 years, and met him 3.5 years ago. To quote him, "you didn't eat vegetables when I met you." I remember my mother being a good cook, but I now realize that it isn't that hard to do meat & potatoes and casseroles! I blame her (love her, but blame her) for my late turn on to veggies.
I didn't really get into cooking until my sr. year in college when my best friend started dating a chef (he is a good friend of mine now). I was the only one with a car, so I would drive to the grocery store, we would shop together, and then I would watch him cook. I learned how to improvise, use ingredients in new ways, etc from him, and I've learned that vegetables I had never eaten under my mother's roof (eggplant, artichokes, asparagus, summer squash) are now some of my favorites.
As for the simpler things my mother did cook (tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower), she just cooked from frozen or canned and never added much flavor. I didn't like tomatoes until I started roasting them. I now eat pretty much everything and make it a point to eat vegetables at every meal (I slip a lot, but I still try!) and I enjoy it, a lot. I think you have to teach your kids about the different ways you can prepare veggies and work in other flavors to make them interesting - what my mother never did!
Cooking With Kids: Eat Your Veggies
LizNYC, it doesn't say in that article specifically what the gene is controlling, but the two theories aren't mutually exclusive: some kids could be averse to bitter flavor because they have more taste buds.
Cooking With Kids: Eat Your Veggies
I grew up liking vegetables (and our were always just steamed, sometimes sauted...no cheese sauce, butter, or ever salt in sight), especially the ones that grew in out backyard like tomatoes and summer squash.
I've read that kids not liking vegetables has something to do with taste buds. If I remember correctly, the theory is that children have way more taste buds than adults. Probably in line with the "super taster" idea, the flavors of vegetables are much stronger to kids, and therefore distasteful. So maybe Iris will like asparagus as she gets old and her taste buds mellow out.
Oops, I misspoke. It looks like it has more to do with bitterness than prevalence of taste buds.
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=69461-bitterness-vegetables-taste
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If I were you I'd keep your daughter away from asparagus. Although she wasn't always this way, mine, at age 14, eats most of the asparagus I cook, especially if I grill it.