Cooking For A Picky Eater

My husband Elvis has always been a picky eater. His family loves to tell me stories about his childhood when he wouldn't eat fish or any type of vegetable. When we were first married, he insisted on having "normal" food, meaning meat and potatoes, and all cooking had to be done with butter, whole milk, full-fat sour cream, etc. Nothing low-calorie or healthy!

I was determined to convert him to foods that I considered normal. One approach I used was to prepare a new food, such as broccoli, and cover it in melted cheese. Elvis will eat almost anything if it's covered with lots of cheese. Then I gradually started preparing the broccoli in different ways.

When I learned that Elvis loves spicy food, I decided to try using different spices to get him to try new dishes. He's always reluctant to try something he hasn't had before, but 99% of the time he loves it. Now he even eats fish if it's prepared with interesting spices.

I do use skim milk, Smart Balance, light sour cream, and other low-fat or low-calorie substitutions in recipes, but I generally do it when he's not watching. What he doesn't know won't hurt him!

This Chili-Rubbed Tilapia is now a favorite around our house - and it's something he would have never dreamed of eating a few years ago!


Have a picky eater in your house? Share your tips and tricks in the comments!

Elle Meyer, author of Living the Thin Life, focuses on healthy and low-calorie cooking. By integrating healthy but tasty tips into all her meals, she can "live the thin life" without feeling like she's dieting all the time. Elle will be regularly contributing easy weight maintenance tips to FunnySpoon.com, which is perfect because "easy" is our middle name.

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3 comments:

Unknown said...

My fiance won't eat anything! He likes meat and cheese and the only vegetables he likes are potatoes, sometimes and corn, which are starches!! He eats way too many carbs too! I have tried hiding things in cheese or in dishes that he does like but he always finds them and picks them out!! Those picky eaters kinda of ruin things for those that like to experiment

Vicki said...

Well, the good news is his tastes might change every few years. I remember I used to not like olives, pickles, onions, or shrimp and now it seems like I can't get enough of them! So fingers crossed that he'll wake up one day with some new tastebuds!

lindsay said...

Christina - you're so right that picky eaters ruin it for the rest of us! You should try pureeing veggies and adding them to spaghetti sauce, mashed cauliflower into mashed potatoes and there are even tricky ways to add fruits and veggies into cookies and BROWNIES! It can't get much better than that. :) If you experiment with anything, be sure to let us know how it works out!

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