Research shows: Dutch parents don’t encourage their children to try new things enough
Meal kit company HelloFresh conducted research* and what do you know: a third of Dutch parents have never let their children taste something unfamiliar. Something new, a different ingredient or product than they’re used to. Sounds shocking? A little, I think. But then again, it’s easy for me to say that with a 13-year-old human garbage disposal at home. How do you get those-I-don’t-like-it whiners to eat?
Apparently, some children aren’t at all interested in all the adventurous dishes and products HelloFresh puts in its meal kits, and call HelloFresh—hahaha—‘Hello gross’. We previously shared 10 tips for I-don’t-like-it children, who often have the most idiotic reasons for not finishing their plates, and HelloFresh also has a few handy tricks for getting those much-needed vitamins into their little mouths.
Bitter, bleh, spicy, ugh!
For many parents, the ‘I-don’t-like-this’ phase is nothing new. This phase often lasts a few months, but sometimes (hell) an entire childhood. According to HelloFresh’s research, bitter (42%) and spicy (29%) flavours are the hardest to get a child to try. When it comes to the type of dish, children are particularly difficult to get excited about dishes with seafood (24%) or fish (20%), and cooked vegetables aren’t a favourite either (21%).
Outsmart your child
Is your child not keen on trying new flavours? HelloFresh has a few tips for you to try:
- Change the way you prepare the vegetable. Vegetables often become a little sweeter and crispier in the oven. Here are our 7 tips for the best grilled vegetables (+ extra frozen vegetable tips!)
- Give the dish or vegetable original names. Let the children’s creativity do the work.
- Hide the vegetables. Make a red pasta sauce with lots of vegetables and then purée it, or mix cauliflower rice into regular rice, for example.
- Make the food into fun shapes. For example, make a face out of the potatoes and vegetables or, if you really want to get creative, shape it like an animal. Take inspiration from this mother who makes edible works of art so that her son finishes his plate. Or how about this egg art that no child can resist?
- Involve children in choosing a recipe and let them help in the kitchen (like this little chef!) with preparing a dish.
- If everything fails: throw it in the deep fryer! Because as our Snackspert rightly says: everything tastes better deep-fried! You can deep-fry all of this, knock yourself out!
Read also:
- This is what children around the world eat in a week
- These children’s reviews are more critical than those of many a food critic
- Research proves: people who make a mess with their food are healthier
*HelloFresh’s research was conducted by Census Wide for HelloFresh among 21,738 respondents, including parents with a child under 18 living at home in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Quebec, Switzerland and Denmark in December 2020 and January 2021. In the Netherlands, 1,523 respondents took part in the research, including 1,064 respondents with a child under 18 living at home.
