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Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

My kid (~2 years) prefers to eat food they like the taste of most.

Turns out that they prefer the sweet tastes of biscuits and even bananas etc to broccoli and carrots.

They'll whinge and whine about being hungry, so you offer them some peas or avocado or something and they will literally push it out of the way, look you straight in the eye, and tell you about how hungry they are (...but not hungry enough to eat the veggies in front of them!). Offer them crisps or biscuits or even just fruity-yoghurt and they'll scoff it down super-fast because presumably it tastes nicer.

Can't blame them really.

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I can understand peas, but avocado is fatty indulgent wonderful food. Not liking avocado is absurd. It's like not liking peanut-butter.

Side-note: I learned the most grotesque aberration that shows how the U.S. is orders of magnitude into complete dysfunction: there's something called "diet peanut butter" (learned about this because of a warning I saw online not to give it to dogs). WTF is "diet peanut butter"???? Peanut butter is this rich, delicious oily food. It doesn't need a damn thing to be a great treat. But in the U.S., it's not only typically salted, they add a large amount of sugar. That's already insanely stupid. You want to cut out the sugar? Just enjoy the plain amazing peanut butter on its own!! Nope, they made "diet" by swapping the sugar for xylitol or something. INSANE.

P.S. I live in and grew up in the U.S., I'm judging my own country.

> Not liking avocado is absurd. It's like not liking peanut-butter.

I'm not American but I hate both. They're bland foods.

Is peanut-butter really liked much outside the US/North America?

Widely eaten in the Netherlands (though not on its own - usually on bread, and never with jelly). Many people swear by the main brand Calvé, although peanut-only single-ingredient peanut butter has gained serious traction in the past few years.

not really that much, just a slightly exotic item like say maple syrup

I don't think ive ever eaten it by itself, but I can confirm that I've had it on sandwiches in Australia, in Satay, (Golden tofu/chicken) and a peanut stew (African iirc).

Satay sauce and peanut stew are different from peanut butter, though.

I'm Italian and I like it, although I ate it for the first time when I was a PhD student in the UK. In Italy it's not always easy to find.

It's fairly common here in Germany.

My parents avoided this issue by just not offering me crisps biscuits etc almost ever (perhaps one on the weekend if I were lucky - certainly not every day). Within healthy food groups they would make an effort to provide foods I liked though.

Classic symptoms of sugar addiction. I've found it takes around three weeks without sugar to reset this, then the sugar cravings hacking the system disappear.

> they will literally push it out of the way, look you straight in the eye, and tell you about how hungry they are

While "sugar addiction" has it merits, the main problem here is the parents who are toyed around by a little egoist... and they are happy to oblige.

From a very young age, me Small Child liked peas frozen. I think the temperature sensation and contrast with other foods must have been interesting.

Carrots in Australia seem to be quite sweet compared to the carrots that I had in some of Asia, how do carrots taste in the US ?

So do they not class carrots as sweet at all? Is this related to kids hating olives at all?

I hated carrots growing up. I definitely would not describe them as "sweet": they taste dry and sour, take a long time to chew, and the juice makes my throat hurt.

Maybe my family just bought bad carrots, but they all seemed to like them. I don't know.

Most modern carrots are quite sweet, however the ratio of fibre to sugar prevents the rapid glycemic spike that triggers the sugar addiction.

I've never met a kid who hates olives!

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