Culinary Creativity: Getting Your Picky Toddler to Eat.

Guest Post by Sage Adderley

Apparently my 2-½ year old son is now a picky eater. While he has no problem snacking, he has become selective as to what he’ll eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I began brainstorming food ideas and thought about making him some bento-style lunches.

I became slightly obsessed with bento a few years ago. Bento is a Japanese box lunch. I was initially interested in bento when I discovered a bento-themed Flickr group with photos of bento food art. Basically people creating characters (Hello Kitty, Mario, etc), animals, and nature objects using various food items.

The bento box lunches range from simple to elaborate. Bento-style lunch boxes also help with portion control and making sure you have an assortment of food.

I decided to order some bento products from All Things For Sale. I picked up the following:

• ·      animal food pick set
• ·      dinosaur-shape cutter
• ·      stainless steel veggie cutters (heart, star & bear shapes)
• ·      small plastic cups for dipping sauces
• ·      bento box
• ·      colorful food separators

I started off small by cutting fruits, such as apples and bananas, with the star and heart shape cutters. I placed an animal pick in the fruit and my son loved it! I’ve never seen him devour food so quickly.

While some people get extremely creative with bento food art, I have kept it fairly simple. Like most other families, we are busy and time is usually not on our side. For me, preparing his fruit and vegetables with the shape cutters takes no more time than slicing it with a knife, so why not make it fun?

The stainless steel cutters are also perfect for cheese slices, sandwich meat, pancakes, and lasagna noodles. The bonus is that the bento accessories have helped him learn colors, animals, and shapes. It has been a win-win situation.

If you are interested in learning more about bento, I highly recommend the website,  Lunch in a Box. 

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I met Sage six years ago. We have gotten to know each other over the last several years, and I'm lucky to be able to call her one of my best friends. She is a major inspiration to me, creatively and otherwise. She runs Sweet Candy Distro, and has a blog of her own called, 'my name is: Sage'.  She's a freelance writer and has an Etsy shop, which is also called, 'my name is: Sage'.  Sage is an awesome mother to three amazingly bright and creative children. If I could choose one person to be most like in the 'mommy department', it would definitely be this woman. 

Help me support one of my besties by visiting her blog, her distro, and her Etsy shop!