I have encouraged my kids to eat well from day one. I add flavor - herbs and spices - to everything because I don’t want them getting used to starchy, bland food. I also want them to experiment - they don’t have to love everything, but they do have to try it.

Sweeney frames healthy eating as a learned palate rather than a restriction. By emphasizing herbs and spices, she argues that “healthy” need not mean joyless or bland, and that early exposure shapes children’s expectations of what food should taste like. The insistence on trying foods—without requiring immediate love—promotes curiosity and resilience, separating the act of tasting from the pressure to perform approval. The quote also reflects a parental strategy: building long-term habits through repeated, low-stakes experimentation, so children associate nourishment with variety, flavor, and openness rather than with deprivation.