Invalidating a kid’s feelings towards foods isn’t nice or helpful. I was introduced to the saying “don’t yuck my yum” during a brief stint volunteering with a local non-profit conducting an after-school gardening program. During our training, the lady in charge of the program told us “don’t yuck my yum” should be one of our class rules. Not only were the kids to be taught the phrase, they were to be instructed to taste every food they were presented with at least three times before deciding they didn’t like it. “Don’t yuck my yum” sounds cute, but the approach is wrongheaded. The idea made me cringe, but I went along with it thinking that I don’t know everything and maybe I should reserve judgement on this issue. After further consideration, I regret my silence and capitulation. Sure enough, during the second class one unfortunate student expressed her opinion out loud about tomatoes, describing them as “yucky.” She was immediately reminded, in front of the whole class, not to yuck anyone’s yum and demanded to give the tomatoes three tastes. I’ll never forget the look of disgust on her face as she was forced to taste a tomato three times while the rest of the class looked on. I doubt that child is a tomato fan after her experience. I wonder if she’ll ever voluntarily try a tomato again in her life. Every child’s feelings toward a food are valid, not just the kids who like the food. What are we telling kids when we insist on a “don’t yuck my yum” policy? Does any of this sound healthy or helpful? Registered Dietitian and Psychotherapist Ellyn Satter advises parents to adhere to a Division of Responsibility in Feeding which all adults providing food to children and adolescents should adopt. Her approach is considered a best practice by The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Expert Committee on Childhood Obesity, Head Start, WIC, and the USDA (see here). Satter’s Division of Responsibility in Feeding (sDOR) in a nutshell: If your concern when a child says “yuck” is table manners, then teach her a more polite way to communicate she doesn’t want to eat a food. For example: If your concern is that other children will not eat the food after hearing another say “yuck,’ then handle that by explaining that you like the food and why. For example:
“Don’t yuck my yum” is not congruent with the best practice of sDOR and is just a bad policy. Demanding a child eat a food they find repulsive seems abusive. Let’s make eating an enjoyable experience for kids both at home and away from home by honoring their feelings and giving them room to try new foods naturally, in their own time, without external pressure or shaming.
 I just learned the phrase "don't yuck my yum." It's defined in the urban dictionary as "do not say that my food tastes bad," but to me it is much more meaningful than that. Yeah, you might be eating some reheated french fries and have to ask someone to not yuck your yum as they judge your meal decisions, but that is nothing compared to the yuck that Westerners have put on the foods of entire cultures of indigenous peoples. Clearly, I am thinking of edible insects here. I am commonly asked "why don't we eat bugs in Western cultures," and the answer is quite complicated. I usually start with the environment - outside of the tropics, insects are less abundant and much more seasonal. Since this is also true of plant foods in these regions, the first people to make lives for themselves in northern environments had to rely on hunting since animals can eat the woody plant browse foods that we cannot digest; and then we can eat them. So in these diets, insects would be nutritionally redundant. However, in recent years, I have been getting better at decoloninizing anthropology and make it a point to also mention how here in the United States, when Europeans came to this continent with their insect-free diets, they were appalled that indigenous diets included insects and considered it part of their beast-like nature (Columbus used the phrase como bestias). Although rarely discussed, Columbus used these beliefs as justification for establishing the trade of indigenous islanders as slaves. I have upcoming publications that detail this history more thoroughly, but my point here is that how we talk about food matters. Someone left a comment on my youtube video - "Sorry, you'll never get us to back to 10,000 BCE." And once I had to answer to someone live on air in a radio interview who made a comment about "devolution." What these kinds of remarks fail to recognize is that billions of people today eat insects. These are people just the same as you and me. They are not relics of the stone age nor are they less evolved, they are people representing the beautiful things that make us human; the ability to exhibit dietary flexibility in order to make lives for ourselves in a wide range of environments. Remembering back to that radio interview, I am proud of what I said when put on the spot. I made the counter-argument that people who eat insects have been using their resources much more wisely than we have been which is why we are looking to their food choices as alternatives to the industries we've created that are destroying the environment. Their way of life is much more sustainable, and the only reason why it might not appear that way is because Western culture has been pushed on them for hundreds of years. When I give talks and offer insect-based snacks, it does not matter to me if people will not try them; however, I ask people to respect them. Our aversions and disgust reactions are culturally based, and we are products of our culture and thus it is completely normal to have those responses. But we do not need to degrade others with our choices. Insects are a nutritious, environmentally friendly food source that people have been wise to utilize for millions of years. Instead of asking "why don't we eat insects" the better question may be "why did we stop eating insects?" which can only be answered by addressing our colonial history. |
