u/Worried_Mastodon1280

This is going to be a long post, I feel completely lost and need advice on helping my toddler try new foods. For a little background, my toddler shows a lot of behaviours toward food that I did as a child. Until my 20s, I mostly ate simple foods like chicken nuggets, French fries, pizza, hot dogs, junk food, etc. I would inspect my tacos to be sure there was no stray lettuce inside. If a vegetable made it into a bite somehow and I chewed it, I would gag and spit the bite out. Sure I grew up fine and matured in my early 20s and forced myself to eat vegetables until I liked them. But i want my kid to do better than I did.

We recently moved from North America to Korea. I knew this would be a challenge given that she eats a lot of processed food, but I also knew it would force both myself as the parent and her to dive headfirst into combatting her picky eating. Some of our biggest crutches were oat/fruit bars, pouches, goldfish, and cheezits. We are nearly out of the stockpile I was able to pack to bring with us. I don’t want to replace these highly processed snacks with new highly processed snacks, and there aren’t really any substitutes available at the grocery stores that I have seen.

Some of her rejected foods that I would like to encourage her to try are:
Rice (used to eat as a baby, now rejects)
Pasta (same as rice, used to eat Alfredo pasta as a baby, now rejects all pasta)
Milk
Fruits (she used to eat apple and blueberries from age 1-2, but started refusing them sometime between age 2-3)
Beef (she will eat a hamburger, but that’s it)
Any vegetables but I know that’s probably far down the line for her

Foods she will eat in Korea:
Fish
Chicken nuggets
Pizza
Cereal with milk (but she won’t drink milk plain)
Don katsu (breaded and fried pork/chicken)
Duck (?? lol she said it smelled like bacon 😅)
Pork at kbbq restaurants (told her it was special bacon)
Bread

When we have had success with her trying a new food, we “marketed” it to her as a similar food she knows that she likes. So duck/pork = special bacon. Don katsu = special chicken.

In Korea, she is kindergarten age, so we want to enroll her soon so that she can learn Korean and make friends in our new home. But many of the schools provide lunch and do not allow children to bring a packed lunchbox. How can I send my child to kindergarten if she won’t even eat rice 🥲

Food has always been contentious for us. There have been times where she cries and gets upset and won’t even try one bite of the food offered. Or sometimes she says she is “scared” to try a new food. I always offer to have a drink ready in case she doesn’t like the food and tell her that she can spit it out if she doesn’t like it.

How can I work with her to try new foods without tears and arguing, or flat out rejection? Any advice is very appreciated 💖