Nutrition

I have 3 kids. My eldest is the pickiest creature I have ever met, my middle one will eat anything sometimes he just needs a little persuasion and my youngest is breastfeeding so we haven't come to food battles yet.

I know my eldest needs to change his eating habits. He eats fruit and maybe a dozen variations of meals. But as he gets older instead of opening and expanding his horizons he's getting worse. An example, he now won't eat the eggs I make him because they have white in them. He has cut cheese out of a lot of food ie no cheese in a burrito and when he would eat eggs, no cheese in it. I am TIRED of making a meal for my husband and myself and then either a variation of that meal or a second meal for my kids. Even though my middle child will eat what we eat if he sees his brother eating something else he wants what his brother has.

Before I decide how to go about changing my eldest's eating style, I am getting him checked for allergies. According to my doctor, friend, and other doctors, sometimes when kids are picky it is actually for a reason not just for obstinate sake. It could mean they have an allergy. Kids are sensitive and they may start to correlate not feeling well with a food and so they remove it from their diet by refusing to eat it. This next week we'll get his blood drawn and a few days after that I'll have an idea on if there are any internal issues going on.

If not, at that point, I'm going to ask for ideas on how to get kids to expand food horizons! Part of why I chose to not push it earlier on was he is incredibly stubborn and it was a horrible battle. I don't want to dislike my child and I just saw that coming with how much he dug in and refused to eat what I was serving. On the other hand, if there are no allergies, it may have to come to that point. So I'll research and take suggestions because I want my kid to be healthier and have a more well rounded diet. And I want to cook what I want to cook and know he'll at least try it.