no sugar added

Older daughter has food issues at dinner every night. It's usually over
something green in the vegetable variety. She is trying really hard to
be finicky.

One of my rules at the dinner table is NO COMMENTARY. You are not
allowed to say, especially in a whiny voice:

"I don't like that!"
"I don't want that!"
Or any variation on that theme.

One of the reasons for this is that if I just cooked it, I think the
least everyone else can do is not complain about it, and especially not
start complaining about it before they even try it.
The second reason is that I had noticed what happens is one child starts
with the whiny I don't like that!!! and the other kids are listening and
you can see the wheels start turning. They start to think something
like "I know I've always liked green beans in the past, but if he/she
doesn't like them then maybe I shouldn't like them either!!!!"

A couple of weeks ago we were having spinach salad with raspberry
vinaigrette dressing. Older daughter was practically inhaling it until
someone said the word spinach. Then she stopped eating it cold. Then
there was a similar incident with spinach artichoke dip. I guess I
probably am the wicked step mom cooking all this green leafy food.

Older daughter has taken a fancy to begin investigative action when I
start to cook. She starts reading labels and boxes and asking questions
during the food prep process.

For instance, tonight she came in when I was cooking and said what's
that??? to the pan of okra on the stove. I told her okra and she said
hmmmm - using a tone of voice that really meant I'm saying hmmmm like
it's delicious but I am really going to try to find a way not to eat
it.

She went on her merry way and I told the Pastor yep, the okra is going
to be a problem.

Little does older daughter know, but I have had food aversions, issues
and borderline eating disorders FOR YEARS. She is dealing with an
expert! There are, like five things I will eat! I routinely don't eat
breakfast and lunch to avoid hundreds of calories. I don't eat fish
sticks and I haven't since I read "How to Eat Fried Worms" and I don't
eat spaghetti or angel hair pasta due to its resemblance to worms. I
don't eat eggs because they are aborted baby chickens that come out of a
momma chickens hoo-ha. And believe me, I could just go on and on.

Anywho, the Pastor and the kids sit down at the table and before I can
sit down she is trying to find secret code words in order to tell her
dad she doesn't like it. She put hardly any okra on her plate. She
said is that enough Robyn? And I said nope. So she took a bit more and
you could just tell she didn't want to eat it. She was pushing it
around her plate. The Pastor and the daughter had about 42
conversations about the okra, but in the end she ate it (emptying her
glass twice in the process of washing down the okra).

Turns out later the Pastor told me as soon as she saw the okra cooking
she was hunting him down, begging him to let her skip the okra.

Later in the evening, I had to show her how one poses for pictures. But
then she kicked her friend who lives across the street and lied about
it, so she had to go to bed. Younger daughter and I stayed up and I put
makeup on her and we ate cheesecake. I will eat that.