I'm so glad to see someone say this:
There is no way I'm going to try everything, so I can't very well make my child do it, kwim? I have never eaten an olive, they disgust me, and I will never try them. And if someone made me try them, I'd feel really upset.
Olives are the most evil food on the face of the planet and everyone who eats them should be sent to live on an island and stay away from the sane people left on the earth who realise that olives were not meant to be consumed.
On a more serious note, it is the way I aim to think with DS and trying foods. I'm not going to taste an olive. I don't care about the fact that I have not tried one in over 15 years and that just *maybe* I might like them now....I'm just not going to. And so I try to keep that in mind with DS. I lived in Asia for 5 years and I hate spicy food. There were many many days I went hungry and I lost a LOT of weight while living there just because I would not eat most of the foods, nor would I even try them.
Hmmm - sorry girls do you mean 2-3 foods overall or 2-3 foods for one meal? What kind of meals have 5 or more foods in one sitting?? Frankly it's just too much food for DH and me, I would certainly expect it to overwhelm Finn too. He seems overwhelmed by what we already serve. It's just not how DH nor I grew up, I wouldn't even know how to make a meal with 5 different items...and then different ones all the time.
I think that what you count as a "food" is maybe not the same as what Kate or others mean. It is the opposite for me in that I can't imagine a meal with only 2 foods on the table but I suspect we are just thinking of it different. We easily have 6-10 "foods" at every meal, every night. But not all of them are cooked or prepared by me. So for us for instance, 6-10 foods in a meal means that I cooked some chicken and rice, and heated some peas. A pot of cottage cheese on the table, bread and butter, and cold carrot sticks. That is 6 different foods to me. If I made a salad as well then that adds 3-5 things (ie/ lettuce, cucumber, avocado, tomato, spring onions). It is not too much food because the cottage cheese, carrots, salad all go back in the fridge at the end of the meal to come out again the next night, the peas really only have to be a tablespoon each, and the bread is sliced as or if you want it. You don't need huge portions of each food and not all of us will eat EVERY one of the foods - my DH will might the cottage cheese and bread but not carrots and me the opposite.
And it does not need to take a lot of time: last night we had pork wraps (pork cooked in crock pot all day, it took me 5 minutes to shred it with a fork for dinner while the wraps warmed in the oven). On a large plate I put shredded cheese, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, sliced avocado and sour cream and we make our own at the table. It takes me 3 minutes to make cous-cous (cous cous and frozen peas in a bowl, boil kettle and pour water on, leave sit for 2 minutes, fluff it and add some chopped cucumber and tomatoes, done). So for dinner I count that as 10 different foods that DS had the option to eat but I suppose some people might think of that as two foods (wraps and cous-cous).
Trouble is that by licking your not getting the full range of buds involved as some taste buds are more sensitive than others, from my understanding.
You're probably right about this, but honestly I think that for a 3yo you are being a bit unreasonable.
If he does not want to try something then I think licking it has to count. There are times when you need to pick your battle and explaining to a three year old what taste buds are and how he needs the full-taste-experience to decide if he likes it or not isn't going to get you any further. Let him lick things for now and when he his older you can encourage a bit more.
Most contain 3 foods at most, most often just 2 - meat and a veg. DH and I are also 'picky' and have a repertoire that we'll eat from for the most part. I have been making stuff he (and DH) likes for the most part, but the problem is, Finn's slowly dwindling his list of acceptable foods by proclaiming he doesn't like something he used to like. So meals are becoming toast every night.
If you and your DH are both picky and you want Finn to learn to be more open to new foods then I think you have to start making things that are new to all of you and possibly things that you and/or Tom don't like as well. And properly taste them, and properly eat them. Otherwise you are making different rules for the both of you than for him. And if you are only offering him two foods at a meal IMO it is not really encouraging him to open up his repertoire and try new foods when there are only two options presented, and then toast as the alternative. Some nights you include toast on the table as one of the options but not just for him but for any of you - put it in the centre of the table and make it available to everyone not a special thing you made for him, allow him to choose the toast from the options available - but other nights there is no toast and he has to choose from something else that is on the table.
If you are not able to cook then I would at least put a few other things in the centre of the table and they are available for everyone to choose from. One of the best pieces of advice that I had (from Ellyn Satter, an Aussie 'picky eaters' expert that Deb in Oz directed me to) is not to put anyone's food on plates. Put everything that is an option in the centre of the table and everyone chooses what they want to eat. Allow Finn to choose the things that he is going to eat and do not comment on it, and also don't comment on your own choices as a way of encouraging (ie/ my DH used to do an exaggerated gush of "Oh WOW this is SOOOOOO good....wow! Yum!!"
as a manipulative way of getting DS to want to taste it, which only made DS avoid it more because he knew that is what was going on). "True" compliments that are normal are fine ("mmm, the chicken's nice" iyswim) but leave it at that. After a very short time we were surprised at what DS reached for and chose on his own. He tried a lot of new things - licks and spits for many of them but trying is trying! And also making sure that if he does not want/like/choose anything from the options then he does not get anything else. There needs to be at least something that he likes and can choose from but other than that, that's it. If he knows he can choose toast every night then there is no incentive to eat anything else.
