Eating the Alphabet - "A" Week

"A" is for Alphabet

 

 

This is my own little contribution to my blog and maybe sometime someone will see it and pin it to Pinterest where it will become an overnight sensation, and moms everywhere will thank me for such an amazing idea.  (One can dream!)

My 2 boys are notoriously picky eaters.  (I wonder where they get that from.)  I am shocked that W has not turned into a chicken nugget himself.  We go out to restaurants, he wants chicken nuggets.  I ask what they want at home for dinner and he says chicken nuggets.  It is at the base of his food pyramid of what he actually eats.

But the funny thing is, they do eat some foods that a lot of other people don't eat.  Soft-shell crabs anyone?  So I guess they are selectively picky.

So, we've got to change these eating habits.  I have bribed, begged, pleaded and threatened to no avail.  I want them to try new things, but make it fun at the same time.  So I came up with the idea of alphabet eating.  Each week, we are going to try new or differently prepared foods that start with a particular letter of the alphabet.  And to make it easy, we'll just start with the letter A and go alphabetically. 

Sounds like a great idea in theory.  And they were totally on board with it.  "What are we going to eat for X week mommy/"  That's 24 weeks away.  I can't worry about it now when I'm wondering how I"m going to pull off A week.  This has to be fun.  I can't just shove asaparagus and artichokes and anchovies on their plates and tell them to eat up.  So there will be some different foods, and some that we already eat.  After all, I don't want them to starve. 

I had a couple of ideas of what to buy for A.  So I went to the store and started looking around.  Right there in the produce section, the first thing I saw was Acai juice.  It seems like Acai is the new pomagranate because it is everywhere.  In juice, in yogurt, as a supplement.  Touting it's antioxident and vitamin C benefits.  Since I have never actually seen the actual fruit, I decided to go with the juice.  And I kept walking through the store to see what I could find.  Artichokes?  No, too difficult to prepare.  What's this?  An Asian pear?  Never heard of it, but they eat pears so we'll try it.  Anchovies?  Ick.  I wouldn't even eat them.

So here are the verdicts:

Acai juice - not bad, but has kind of a funny aftertaste.  Glad we tried it but we won't buy it again.

 

 

 

 

Almonds - both boys actually said they had tried them and liked them.  This is being added to our list
           of approved snacks

Apricot - we had to go with dried as fresh is not in season.  They don't particularly care for dried
           fruits to start with , but they willingly each ate one.

Avocado - both willingly tried it.  W does not like the texture, and B would prefere it as guacamole

Asian Pear - this was the biggest surprise of the week.  They both eat apples and pears and this is a pear that looks like an apple.  They each took a bite and turned their noses up.  Said it was too sour.  In all fairness, my mother-in-law both agreed that it does have a crisp tartness to it, but still sweet.

Angel Food Cake - we had to end the week with something yummy!

So all in all, I think it was a success.  I am not expecting them to like everything, but they know they have to try it and give it a fair shot.  I'm glad they liked the almonds, and I am looking forward to eating more Asian pears myself.