With a toddler around, mealtime is seldom an enchanting hour in the household. Dealing with the terrible twos means that your kid has probably discovered a newfound skill of throwing, spitting, and refusing to eat anything placed in front of them.
In order to make this process far less exhausting and more enjoyable, many a child expert has suggested ways to find healthy foods for picky kids that they'll actually eat. From making funny faces out of their least favorite fruit and veg to filling ice cube trays with an array of tiny, bite-sized, healthy nibbles to telling a grandiose story with the food on their plate, there are plenty of ways to get your child to eat.
Or, if you're Australian celebrity chef Curtis Stone, maybe you'll take a little harsher of a route: let them go hungry.
Wait... what? Yes, that's what Stone told Melbourne's Herald Sun when asked what to do with a picky toddler.
“I think the problem is too many parents worry about their kids being hungry that they let their children dictate what they eat,” Stone told the paper. “I don’t see the big deal in letting kids go hungry a few times. They’ll eat when they’re hungry.”
He also recommended not giving children snacks between meals, and if your child doesn't want to eat the dinner you made? Wrap it up, put it away, and wait until they're hungry enough to eventually eat it.
Stone is an LA resident, where he lives with his wife and kids, two young boys who seem to follow the chef's tough-love model. In previous interviews, he has spoken about how he won't let his children eat junk food, because it's “full of s***." As a parent, the chef says that it is a priority to feed his children healthy food, and he urges other parents to do the same.
"Your kid is going to embrace whatever you expose them to, right, that's just a fact of life," he says. "People tell you, 'No, no my kid likes this or my kid likes that'. My opinion is: that's just not accurate."
But should we trust Stone's opinion? After all, he is a rich chef with gobs of money, plenty of resources, and the mental and emotional stamina to deal with hunger striking toddlers, blue faced tantrums, and long-winded mealtimes.
And all around the Internet, mothers are raising their voice in disagreement.
"Oh Curtis. You didn’t really say that did you?," NewsComAu contributor Lana Hirschowitz wrote in an op-ed parenting article titled, "Since when is Curtis Stone a parenting expert?"
She continues: "Did you learn nothing from that time last year when you said parents were to blame for their kids fussy eating habits and you loudly brayed about how your son Hudson eats a wide variety of foods including lots of fruit and vegetables, snails, foie gras and caviar."
And Hirschowitz is right. Realistically speaking, the chef's opinion doesn't speak for all budgets, lifestyles, and individual children. Sure, this method could work for some toddlers, but you certainly need to be careful about forcing kids to eat certain foods. While it's important to set an example and serve your family healthy meals as a foundation, kids are people too, Mr. Stone! They are completely and totally entitled to their own individual tastes and preferences.
There is no universal panacea for dealing with a picky toddler. However, if you are like most parents and don't have the budget to forcefully expose your child to the fruits of fresh foie gras and slimy snails (seriously what child would eat that?), then there is another option. Jenny Chandler, author of "Cool Kids Cook," offers you a far more friendly alternative: find healthy foods for picky kids by involving them in the cooking process.
“Children are so much more adventurous if they are in control, if they’ve cooked the dish rather than have it put in front of them," Chandler said in an interview with The Telegraph. "So they’ll have a wider diet if they cook.”
While a toddler might not be the next Curtis Stone in the kitchen just yet, they can certainly help out in the process, measuring out rice, mixing bowls, and helping set the table. These acts will make your children part of the process, rather than putting them on the sidelines.
That way, they'll be invested in their creation. If you're lucky, they might just eat it.
RELATED: 47 Resources for Helping Your Picky Eater 
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