My picky eater

It's no secret that Gabe is a picky eater. We've been battling with foods ever since he started eating solids - first it was the gag reflex, then we found out that he has a pretty potent milk allergy, and then he entered his terrible twos a bit early. End result: a handful of foods that he will eat reliably, and that's about it. There was a brief phase where Gabe ate normally - grilled chicken, pasta, some veggies - but that is long gone. Gabe will eat about any kind of fruit or grain that we give him, and he's a fan of almost every milk substitute we can find (soy milk, soy pudding, rice ice cream, vegan cheese), but he has a very limited selection of proteins (chicken nuggets and hot dogs) and an even more limited selection of veggies (pretty much none).

The last week has been quite an adventure, however. I've been trying to sneak veggies into his diet: I buy him Trader Joe's fiber bars that are made from a combo of vegetable and fruit purees, I mix his green juice (Odwalla superfood) with pureed spinach and veggies, and I recently started experimenting with some hidden vegetable recipes (the avocado chocolate pudding was a hit, see left, and it's milk-free!). But there are some oddities in his diet. Specifically, Gabe is a big fan of hummus, pistachios, and pickles. He recently discovered that he likes popcorn shrimp (or shrimp nuggets, as he calls them), and yesterday decided that he likes black licorice. That's my boy - he won't eat spaghetti, but he's learning to shell his own pistachios.