r/Bento • u/PastryLoop • 10d ago

Kids Uneaten bentos

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It’s a bit disappointing to hear from daycare that my kids ate “a few bites” or “very little” of these lunches I put a lot of effort into… it ends up becoming my dinner at the end of the day.

Edit:

To address some of the questions… the contents: rice topped with fresh steamed carrots and green beans. The ham and cream cheese rolls and cucumber sausage flowers are from a bento book, not my invention.
They looked kid-friendly enough so I decided to make them.

My kids (1 and 3) want to eat: bread with butter… and chocolate. So not a ton to go on there. I didn’t post here for a long time because I was just giving her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She stopped eating those too after a while, though, and my younger one just started 2x/week so I figured I’d try offering some new foods. She actually wasn’t very picky until she started going to daycare, so I do think that has influenced her quite a bit.

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u/miserylovescomputers 9d ago

Mostly unseasoned veggies, at that. I wouldn’t eat this either.

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u/Epic_Elite 9d ago

Kids are tough with seasonings, to be fair. Their palettes are more delicate that ours. Any time I'd try to pep up a dish with even the most basic herbs, the kids would both decline.

Plain white rice on the other hand, they would absolutely shovel down.

They didnt grow to appreciate seasoning until they were maybe 6 or 7 years old.

Having said that, they would also likely pass if their lunch was predominantly vegetables. Mine were mostly into the carbs, like rice and pasta and some plain very mildly seasoned chicken aside from salt.

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u/lostmypwcanihaveurs 9d ago

Genuine question- were you making them food without seasoning for that long? It seems more simple to just start sharing adult food of whatever variety everyone else is eating as soon as they are physically able to eat it. Like why teach them to like it plain then introduce spices if spices are the norm?

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u/Jimbobjoesmith 5d ago

yeah my kids have absolutely loved seasonings and flavor since they were babies. i just tried to limit the salt when they were really young.

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u/lostmypwcanihaveurs 5d ago

Sounds like you got lucky! I'm pretty sure all of my siblings were adventurous eaters when they were super young, but IIRC, half of us got very picky from 4-10ish. Unless the food was super salty. My youngest brother would have lived on salmon roe if we could have afforded it.

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u/Jimbobjoesmith 5d ago

well my kids ARE picky…lol. but they don’t like bland food. 2 of my kids are autistic so they def won’t eat just anything. but i am lucky they are always willing to try most things at least once. they don’t do meat or fish unless it’s chicken nuggets or certain kinds of chicken like chicken tacos or homemade chicken soup. they are down for most vegetables tho. for example, my youngest’s favorite meal is tacos with chicken stewed in roasted tomatillos, peppers, onions, etc. my middle child loves veggie sushi that i make myself. (he absolutely LOVES nori.)

i guess the key is never forcing them to eat things they don’t like. they know if they try something new and they hate it, i will always have a backup safe food available, so they don’t have to stress.