Green Eggs and Ham - Try New Food Challenge

Today's Seuss activity (in celebration of his birthday March 2nd) was based on Green Eggs and Ham.  I've seen tons of wonderful Green Eggs recipes and art projects all over the web to go along with this book.  However, I decided to take the opportunity to do something that would focus more on the message of the book - don't assume you won't like new things until you try them.  What a great opportunity to encourage (i.e. trick) my picky eater, E, into trying new foods!

First, I wanted to teach the girls about the biases we all carry.  I put their (white vanilla-flavored) yogurt into three bowls and added a little food coloring to each so they were different colors:

Then I told them they had to taste each one and tell me which tasted the best.  E took a taste of each color yogurt and declared that the yellow one was definitely the most delicious!  L tasted them all and looked puzzled.. I asked her which one tasted the best, and she replied that they all taste the same (silly Mommy!).  Then she chose pink, because it was her favorite color.  I explained that she was correct and they were all the same, but sometimes we judge things by other factors such as external color instead of seeing what they really are.  Then we took the opportunity to do some color mixing:

The main event (for breakfast, when the girls were good and hungry) was a chance to try different foods.  I made a platter with a variety of food - some that they eat on a regular basis, and others that I'd like them to try (vegetables, meatballs, etc..):

I read Green Eggs and Ham to them, and we discussed how the main character was reluctant to try new food, but actually liked it once he gave it a try.  Then the girls took turns putting on the blindfold and opening their mouths, as I gave them different foods to try.  They were amazingly good at guessing what the food was (I've seen Reality TV cooking contests where the chefs did much worse in this challenge).

Now I mentioned that E is a picky eater.  She is not your typical picky eater - she loves olives, goat cheese, hummus, and salami, but with spit out birthday cake!  Oh, and whenever I give her chicken nuggets, she uses them to lick the ketchup off her plate but will never take a bite (whoever told me that if you present the same food to a child 10 times they will eventually accept it, has never met my E).  So I thought this would be a wonderful way to get her to try (and hopefully like) some new foods.  She let me put foods in her mouth that she never eats, but all the vegetables came right back out.  She even spit out the chicken nugget!  I guess she's just a girl who knows what she likes and what she doesn't.  L discovered that she likes cooked red peppers (but not raw green ones), celery, lettuce, and craisins.  The veggie-fritters were not a big hit either.  After the girls tasted everything, I let them finish up the food sampler platter:

The girls polished off the plate pretty well in addition to some extra apples, oranges, and olives by popular request.

Thank you, Dr. Seuss for helping my kids try new foods!

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