Beets

Have you ever eaten a beet?

The last time I was at Trader Joe's I noticed a package of pre-peeled and steamed beets and I remembered that I had read that they're a good root to make into baby food.  So I thought, "Why not?  Jack has been a great eater so far, maybe he'll like these too."  I picked up a pack and brought it home.

Yesterday I was feeling like Jack might like to try something new... but what?  Oh yeah!  We have beets!  Woohoo!  

So I opened the package.  Have you ever even seen a steamed and peeled beet?  It looks a little like someone took a big melon scoop and pulled out a perfect sphere of canned cranberry jelly. Weird.  The color was lovely, but I was skeptical about the taste and texture.  I also realized that there was a very high possibility that Jack's clothes would be permanently stained bright pinky-red.  

It is my general policy to only feed Jack things that I am willing to eat also.  I think that might be why I opt not to buy baby food in a jar.  There is no way I would want to stick a spoonful of that in my mouth!  Anyway, in keeping with my policy I figured that I should at least try this foreign veggie.  

So I did.  

You know that little rabbit face you make when you are trying a little "bite" of something sketchy?  Your face wrinkles up and you kind of make your teeth stick out from your face so that the only thing that touches the new food is your front teeth as they scrape off the tiniest little sliver?  I made that face. 

I had to take two bites because the taste was totally unexpected.  I needed to confirm that it really did taste like... DIRT! Yep. Beets, in my experience, taste EXACTLY like dirt. 

So I did what any good mother would do.  

I mashed up the beet and added a little applesauce, hopping that the sweetness would sort of mask the dirt flavor.  I tried the mixture and discovered that mostly it just tasted like an apple covered in dirt.  

I fed it to him anyway.

I was kind of looking forward to him making a really grossed out face.  Who doesn't like to laugh at a baby when he is trying a new food?! I even had the camera at the ready to capture the moment because I knew it was going to be great.  Just to clarify, I wasn't going to make him eat it all, I was just going to have my laugh and then make him something else.  I'm not THAT mean.

But I was to be sadly disappointed.  

I offered Jack the first bite, barely able to contain my anticipation.  And... 

nothing

NOTHING!

If anything, he really liked it.  He ate a whole bowl of beets and applesauce without so much as a grimace or gag.  *shoulders droop*

The only thing I could think of was that he hasn't had a good fistful of dirt yet, so maybe he just doesn't have the association that it is a yucky taste.  Then I thought, "Great, now my kid is going to think that things that taste like dirt are supposed to be eaten!"  I'm going to have the kid who eats dirt and sand at the playground.  Oh man, what I have done?!

I guess we'll cross that sandbox bridge when we come to it.  But in the present, I still haven't gotten to see Jack make faces at his food.  He happily eats anything I give him.  Don't get me wrong, I am pretty ecstatic to have a perfect baby, but I feel deprived of the yucky face.  

I think today I'll give Jack a pickle.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Muahhh ha ha!!!!