A Good Eater

I remember my grandma saying about my brother, "he's such a good eater!" There was so much pride and admiration in her voice that I wanted to be a good eater, too. Alas, noone has ever described me as a good eater, and it's not going to happen anytime soon. I have always had strong opinions about food. As a kid, I would rather starve than eat onions, tomatoes, fish, most vegetables, many fruits, or any unfamiliar food. I have no idea how my mother fed me. I think she mostly ignored my food preferences and made what she liked. I remember many nights of grumpily scraping all of the red sauce off my spaghetti, picking through onion-studded meatloaf to find bits that hadn't been contaminated by onions, and drowning fish in ketchup to mask the horrid taste. I knew I would never treat my kids that way - I was only going to make food they liked!

Now that I'm a mom, I know what an impossible task it is to please a whole family with meals. I still don't like visible onions or fish. My husband can't eat anything red, orange, pink, or spicy because it inflames his rosacea. My 5-year-old son, Ryan, doesn't like any vegetable except broccoli, loathes cheese, and prefers to be able to easily identify all ingredients in his food. Dylan, my 3-year-old son loves vegetables, salad, and spicy food, but the only fruits he'll eat are watermelon and apples. Of course, Dylan is still exercising his power in food, so he'll suddenly declare a food off-limits that he loved the day before.

So, this blog aims to explore the challenges of raising good eaters in a busy, crazy world. What's a good eater? In my opinion, a good eater:

• eats a variety of foods,
• is willing to try new things,
• has a healthy relationship to food,
• makes predominantly healthy choices,
• enjoys eating, but does not have it as the center of life,
• and finally, is polite and has good manners.

What do you think a good eater is? Is it a good thing to be a good eater?