‘I dye my toddler’s food blue to get him to eat it – trolls mock me but it works’

Brianne Cahoon had to get creative in the kitchen when her blue-obsessed toddler refused all foods of different colours – but her daughter is freaked out by the tactic

Any parent with a fussy eater will tell you that it’s exhausting to try and find foods that your little one will eat. It’s a real cause of stress when children refuse to eat their dinner, as all parents want their kids to grow up healthy and strong, so many have to get creative to try and convince their tots to take a bite.

One mum has revealed that her son is so obsessed with the colour blue that he refuses to eat food of any other colour, and admits that she’s had to go to extreme lengths to ensure that he eats his meals.

Brianne Cahoon, 24, from Toronto, has tried everything to get her three-year-old son James Johnson to eat food that is not in his favourite colour.

But the young boy is having none of it and dinner times will often result in tantrums from the tot.

The mums says that her kid has been obsessed with the colour for some time – he has a blue bed and also has covered the family Christmas tree in blue baubles.

But in recent days James has been coming home from pre-school requesting blue pasta every day and was causing a scene if his demand was not met.

So one day Brianne decided to take matters into her own hands and use a blue dye in his mac n cheese to make his dreams come true.

Brianne said: “His whole face lit up, he said ‘oh wow blue pasta’ and sat right down and started eating. I usually have to do the aeroplane and put on a show and bargain with him.

“We started doing it to a few other things like eggs and his sipping sauces. He’s started enjoying new food now since he started eating the blue food. He’s always been a bit fussy, not when he was a little baby but since toddler age.”

She continued by saying that even though her husband Evan, 26, does not mind the additional colouring in the food, her younger daughter, Emma, aged two, is disgusted by it.

Brianne explained: “My daughter wants nothing to do with it. She looks at it and screams, she thinks it’s disgusting.

“It looks really weird. My husband doesn’t mind it, he eats the leftovers. It tastes weird to me. It makes you feel weird and it puts it in your mind that it’s a different taste. I don’t like it at all, it doesn’t appeal to me.”

After sharing her parenting hack on social media, Brianne has received a mixed response.

Brianne said: “People said it was really cute and they do it for their kids because they’re fussy eaters but one said James was so spoiled and now I’m giving him blue food colouring and it’s a slippery slope and I’ll be giving in to everything.

“Someone else said food colouring has something in it that causes cancer but it’s just one dot and everything these days could give you cancer.

“They should relax, it’s just some food colouring.”

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