Do your Kids Eat Tomatoes?
What is it with kids and tomatoes?
After this gourmet meal (ha! kidding!) that my husband and I cooked together, and a great time together as a family eating outside and enjoying the last days of summer, I noticed this after the dinner plates were bussed …
What’s the deal with kids picking out the tomatoes?
I will admit that it took me years to learn how to eat a tomato. I began enjoying them on hamburgers. My Mother would go to the garden and eat one warm, right off the vine. It always grossed me out. So I think it was in my 20s when my palate changed toward the flavor.
My kids love spaghetti, salsa, anything saucy, but they won’t eat a plain tomato.
Do your kids scrunch their noses at tomatoes? Or do you find them pushed to the side on the empty dinner plates?
And, I thought it was only my kid! Actually, only my oldest hates tomatoes, although she loves fresh salsa and guacamole (despite despising, onions and avocados as well). My younger two fight for the tomatoes and eat them like apples. I can hardly keep them in the house long enough to get into a meal.
We have crazy kids who eat everything — mussels, oysters, spinach, and yes, definitely, tomatoes! They are pretty much tomato-crazy. I’ll slice up six or eight of the biggest Beefmaster tomatoes for dinner, drizzle them with olive oil and vinegar and some salt and chopped onions, and the kids are fighting for the last slice. I think it might come from the fact that they help grow them in the garden, so it’s all very exciting when they are ready to eat! :)
Actually all do now. #2 used to not eat any vegetables and just throw them under the table for the dog who loves veggies. Now, he loves grape or cherry tomatoes and pops them like candy. He also loves V 8 juice the spicier the better. They do out grow their dislikes sometimes and choose to experience new things. Now, me, I could live off tomatoes alone.
The same things happens at my house. The poor, humble tomato is ignored when it appears in its wholesome form. Crush it into sauce, however, and it’s devoured.
My kids are weird – they are a version of Jack Sprat and his wife! One will eat no meat, the other will meat no green!
And my carnivore, strangely, who turns up his nose at bananas and grapes, LOVES tomatoes. Cherry, in a bowl, with nothing else.
He also eats tuna fish, which I find very strange in a 7 year old.
I can’t remember when I started eating tomatoes, but I vividly remember despising whole, canned tomatoes which occasionally appeared in my mother’s poor attempts at nutrition in the middle of an east-coast winter.
Sandy, I just noticed how your comments puts out the last blog post of the person commenting. That is awesome, thanks for spreading the love!
My kids all love tomatoes, but I do have one child that does not care for them in unprocessed. He will eat them in sauces, just not fresh. My girls eat them straight off the plant like an apple.
My son and friends LOVE fresh off the vine tomatoes. I’ve found these big boogers biting into a warm, juicy tomato, and trying to lie (ok, pretend), they did not snack.
When it comes to fresh tomatoes on salad….they pick them off. What gives?
Just an hour ago, my daughter asked me if she could have a tomato… my kids eat them like fruit, with a little salt. I used to eat them like that too!
I don’t have kids, but my husband will not eat tomatoes. His parents love them and so do I. We can pick them and eat them right then. His brother doesn’t like them either. I hardly buy tomatoes cause he won’t eat them. He says they are sour, but I disagree. There is nothing like eating fresh picked tomatoes.