We are told that we should teach our kids to eat from the rainbow.
And though we’ve always insisted our kids eat their vegetables, or at least try them, I thought it might be fun if the kids chose to eat the colours from the rainbow, then colour in the shade to complete their rainbow in a day.
As with all things parenting, I vacillated between not insisting they try anything to eating everything placed on their plate.
So how to teach my homeschool kids to eat from the rainbow?
This was likely the first power trip I attempted as a parent, and I did it a lot in the first years.
As with all things parenting, I’ve settled somewhere in the middle. Watching my child gag at the dinner table cause they really don’t like “x” is really not worth the emotional memory.
A book entitled, French Kids Eat Everything convinced me that kids should try everything. They should be exposed regularly and early to the good stuff, but we should offer them food, not force its consumption.
If they’re hungry, they will indeed eat.
If a one-year-old French baby has sampled more vegetables than a North American adult, we North Americans just might not be thinking outside the box enough.
I was asked many times how we got the kids to eat long-cooked dry beans, collard greens, and rice for days on end for our trip to rural Kenya. It was easy actually. It was the same reason we ate those things. We were hungry.
No magic tricks are required. When you subtract popsicles and potato chips, candy, and desserts, kids get hungry.
Of course, they’re not going to like Brussel sprouts or steamed spinach from day 1. Does anyone? I suppose if you caramelize them and sauté a few pecans, that might help. But sample anything repeatedly, and it will most often, become, at least, familiar and tolerable.
Often the foods that we are offered from young childhood become some of our favourite flavours.
I’m especially fond of deeply smoked farmers’ sausage; the kind my Mennonite grandpa prepared in his garage. The pungent aroma laced itself thick across the yard before I stepped off the farmhouse verandah. Throw that with a dry curd cottage cheese pocket, known as vereneke, and you have prepared one of my favourite meals. But dry curd cottage cheese isn’t in the mainstream diet.
I’m a die-hard, try-anything kind of person. A true gastronomic adventurer.
But when I was a child? I preferred blocks of cheese melted on bread in the microwave for post-school snacks. I preferred Kraft Dinner mac and cheese. I preferred grilled cheese sandwiches.
At the end of our eating the rainbow day, we had an incomplete arch.
ROY G BIV was not fully represented. The kids learned that B does not stand for brown…there’s no toast, rice, or bread in that rainbow. And white, the colour of bread, cheese, milk…also not on the rainbow.
But it was a rainbow eating challenge that taught us to consider what we eat.
My daughter, Madelyn, and I have been recording and creating cooking demonstrations, The Homeschool Kitchen, found on my YouTube channel if you’re looking for other inspired meal ideas:
- Veggie Burgers & Homemade Buns
- Creamy Cashew Pasta
- Fish Tacos
- Spicy Tofu Bowl
- Roast Chicken
- Bean Chili & Cornbread
- Black Bean Enchiladas
- Chicken Curry
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My childhood favourite is vereneke too! Try the cottage cheese ones with rhubarb and blueberry ones covered in that delicious smolt fat (cream) sauce and you have sent me to heaven! At our house the kids have to try everything, everytime it is on the table, you never know when you might start to like it…we have had a few pepper haters, turn pepper lovers with this strategy. Our slogan at the table is “you can taste the love!” and truer words have not been spoken, now if only some local restaurants would add that special ingredient in their food. Thanks for the great read!
Awesome blog post. Talking about Brussel Sprouts, my S is an exception. He had them for the first time at a Thanksgiving dinner about 3 years ago (he had just turned 4), and ate them to the exclusion of everything else (turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping, etc). But he does have parents on both sides who really like them, so not really a surprise.
Beets are purple-ish.
Hahaha. Ironically this is the healthy food Ive never served my kiddos…cause I don’t like it. This and liver reveal my hypocrisy.
Great post. With a 14, 11 and 7 year old I may have missed my window with some, but might give this a go. I will say I didn’t eat the rainbow as a kid, but have learned to appreciate it as an adult and would love for my kids to have more diverse, healthy eating habits than me.
Yup, I hear you. That was me too. Pizza pockets and melted cheese on bread in the microwave is not eating the rainbow. Though I survived, the goal is to thrive.