Honestly, I think your last sentence is the most important thing that a lot of people forget when they have kids. Kids are still people with their own personalities, and you can't make them like certain things, anymore than you can make adults like certain things. My brother and I grew up the same way, eating more or…

My boss pretty much has the same attitude about her kids, who eat similarly to yours. She decided when she was first introducing them to solid foods that she wasn't going to make mealtime fraught and awful the way it was in her own house growing up, and she would pick her battles. For the first couple years, as long…

I'm lucky in that regard too. My parents weren't quite into healthy cooking that much, but they exposed me to a huge variety of food. And they, in turn, were lucky that I was so open to it and would try anything.

Those kids eat better than I do. I hate quinoa.

It really is. One thing that's delighted me about the area I live in is that when I was a kid, you had the choice for takeout of like, two Chinese places and a few pizza chains and that was it. Now I can get Korean, Japanese, Thai, and Indian food delivered if I want. And though I'm a very good cook, they can do…

Shit, you'd better go back to the 90s and call CPS on my dad then. He used to not only give me olives, but the ones out of his martini because I'd beg for them.

I'm not a parent, but it seems like parents get into a lot of weird competitions lately about the food their kids like. So much of it seems like projecting on their part and I always wonder how much these kids actually like organic roasted beet chips or whether they'd be equally happy with a bag of Cheetos. It's…

I'm one of those annoying people who liked kale decades before it got trendy. When I was a kid, my grandmother made it with some ham hocks or smoked necks, or something, at our house once and was surprised by how much I loved it. I didn't know it was considered garbage by the general culinary world at the time, like…

I remember being horrified at about age 11 or so watching a friend's little brother eat a plate of plain spaghetti with nothing on it. I'm Italian, so you can imagine how distressing that was to me. It's less distressing now, because I'm not the one who's gotta eat it, but man that blew my mind as a kid.

I ate almost everything you put in front of me as a kid, but for years I absolutely loathed brussels sprouts. I loved cabbage, but brussels sprouts tasted like bitter death to me as a kid. Now I think they're awesome, especially roasted.

I'm a single lady and I eat out at a restaurant (not including take-out) maybe once a month.

You know, I was the kind of kid my parents could have bragged about if they'd really wanted to. (My brother, too, to a lesser extent.) You gave it to me? I'd eat it. I have very fond memories of my father bringing home Indian food and sushi for the first time - just to see the look on my face when I took my first…

My parents definitely didn't, but McDonald's (and any fast food) was a legitimate treat when my brother and I were kids, rather than a staple of our diets. As in, we went there maybe once a month or so, even though there was a McD's within walking distance of the house.

I've always been so bewildered by this country's obsession with ranch dressing. I don't think we ever even had it in the house when I was a kid. I grew up eating vinegar and oil on my salads because my dad's Italian and thought it was completely normal.

But at the same time, if more people put the effort into teaching their children good table manners at home, it wouldn't matter if they took their kids to Applebee's or French Laundry, because they would generally behave the same way anywhere. Unfortunately, most people don't even think about teaching these kinds of…

Why do people have to act like this? I actually love oysters and will eat them any which way, but dude, they look like giant loogies and have a very distinctive taste. It surprises me more when people like them than when they don't.

I don't think I've ever had any Indian food of any kind - carb, meat, veggie - that wasn't amazingly delicious. My feeling is that the people who cook regional Indian food have learned how to balance ingredients and flavorings in such a way that they've truly mastered the complexity and harmony in a way you don't get…

My parents had a similar rule, only it was three bites. I thought it was fair then and I think it's fair now.

I'm inclined to agree with you that getting kids involved in the actual cooking process is what will get them more interested in the food than merely going out to a restaurant and ordering. When I turned 10, I had my friends over for a make-your-own-pizza birthday party. One of my friends still talks about how much…

There's also the issue of the autism spectrum and/or sensory issues. I have friends with kids with one, the other, or both - they will literally starve themselves if they can't deal with the texture, taste, or look of an unfamiliar food. You can't just let them go hungry, so between going hungry or eating chicken…