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It’s not until you become a parent that you realize just how much of an issue eating really is. You’re not dealing just with a partner who keeps asking “so what do you wanna eat” every night any longer—no, dear Pandas, now you’ve got a toddler who does weird stuff with their food and is pickier than the critic in Ratatouille.

Humor writer and editor Kristen Mulrooney started up a hilarious but bizarre thread on Twitter that perfectly fits the mood this Spooky Season(™). She shared that her 2-year-old daughter hides her apple cores in an undisclosed area. The only clue is the word ‘underneath’... and it raises a ton of questions.

Inspired by this oh-so-relatable tweet, other parents shared their own kids’ weird and unusual eating habits. Odds are that these might seem very bizarrely familiar to many of you reading this.

Scroll down for a good dose of quality humor and remember to upvote the tweets that you enjoyed the most! Got any peculiar food-related habits that you’d love to share with the rest of the class? What’s your working theory as to what happened to the apple cores in Kristen’s home? Drop by the comment section. (Just don’t slip on the apple cores on your way there.)

Bored Panda got in touch with Kristen, who was kind enough to answer our questions. We had a quick chat about writing quality humor, getting picky kids to try food they don't want to, and mused about the Mystery of the Missing Apple Cores.

More info: Twitter | Instagram | KristenMulrooney.com

Image credits: missmulrooney

Kristen, the author of the viral Twitter thread, shared her thoughts about quality, humorous content. 

"I'm an editor for humor publication The Belladonna and I always tell our writers that the secret to quality humor is being super specific and super universal at the same time," she noted that relatability is key.

"I think that's especially true for tweets. If you can paint the funny scene, that's great, but it really takes off when people can relate to it and have their own funny scene they're eager to share, too."

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Brazen
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My hubby's grandma had dementia and once when we visited her for lunch, the nurse just stuck a mouthful of food in her mouth and walked away. When she was sure the nurse wasn't looking she spit it out onto her spoon and then stirred it into her tea. She then looked at me and went "shhhhh". I laughed so hard. Hubby didn't even notice what happened, which made it all the more funny.

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According to Kristen, 'bribing' one's kids is one of the main ways how parents can convince their kids to try eating something new. Another powerful tactic is making things playful.

"My three kids take some convincing with vegetables, but they'll fall for the 'you're a dinosaur and this broccoli is a tree' bit every time," she told Bored Panda.

"Asparagus is an easy one because I can turn it into a science experiment. They'll shovel asparagus into their mouths after I tell them it makes your pee smell funny."

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As for the apple cores that led to the genesis of the Twitter thread itself, Kristen believes her pooch may have gotten to them.

"I suspect that my dog solved the mystery of the missing apple cores before I did. I hope that's what's going on. I haven't seen a single fruit fly around the house, so fingers crossed," she said.

Based in a small town near Boston, Kristen is the winner of the 2022 Erma Bombeck Humorist-in-Residence program. Meanwhile, her writing has been featured in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, House Beautiful, The Weekly Humorist, Popular Science, and elsewhere.

What’s more, she’s also an editor and contributor at The Belladonna, a satire and humor site. Kristen is also a published writer, having co-written the bestseller Gilmore Girls: The Official Cookbook. Her writing also appears in the humor anthology, Embrace the Merciless Joy: The McSweeney’s Internet Tendency Guide to Rearing Small, Medium, and Large Children.

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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I remember in my early 20's I had a couple of girlfriends that lived with each other. They were known to be downright slobs most of the time. One night I went over for a girls night and of course there was a huge stack of unrinsed dishes in their sink. I couldn't stand it and started handwashing them just to get rid of the smell. They felt bad and came over to help me by rinsing and drying and such but when I got to the bottom of the stack there was some sort of glob of food that I have no clue what it started out as. I gagged like a maniac, and as I went to try and used the sponge to push it down the drain I swear I think this thing had somehow transformed into some sort of entity of its own. It jiggled back at me angrily like it was attacking the sponge. I screamed ran into the bathroom and told those girls I was not coming back out until the killed the sink monster!

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Humorist Kristen’s tweets are hi-la-ri-ous. If you enjoyed this thread, then you’ll probably like her other posts as well. Obviously, you’ll find the freshest comments on her Twitter account. However, if you want to read the best of the best, she shares them on her Instagram.

It’s incredibly relatable humor (especially what she noted about drinking more water), and we spent the better part of the morning laughing.

What Kristen and all the other parents on Twitter are getting at is that, when it comes to food, things are way more difficult than they ought to be. Whether we’re talking about hiding scraps or avoiding eating their veggies like it's bedtime. Yours truly was an incredibly picky eater who'd avoid practically everything during the day and would wake up at midnight to eat chicken drumsticks in the dark.

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Nathaniel
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We used to hide Star Wars figures in the tree, see how long they stayed there before mum removed them. We used to get sneaky. Plant some obvious ones, mum would think she had beaten us, they were the decoys for the ones hidden deep in the branches.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I was little my parents had friends over for dinner. My mom served liver pâté. I hated it so I rolled mine up in a ball and threw it under the dining room table. Next thing you know, the visiting wife tells my parents, “Uh oh, looks like your dog pooped under the table.” We didn’t have a dog. Small dark ball is retrieved from under the table. My mom examines it and says, “This is liver pâté.” All the adults look at me. Pâté is put back on my plate. Parents made me eat it. Moral of the story: kids pants have pockets for a reason.

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A while back, Bored Panda had a lovely chat with pie artist Jessica Leigh Clark Bojin about picky eaters and what parents can do to get their children to at least try new dishes. Creativity (and a smidgen of bribery when that does) goes a long way.

“My mum was occasionally successful in getting us to eat things we didn’t like by hiding the ingredients in other more innocuous foods. I refused to eat eggs in any form as a child. But I loved French toast, and never questioned the suspiciously-thick omelet-like covering on my syrup-drenched toast (I didn’t know that French toast involved eggs!),” Jessica shared her thoughts with Bored Panda during an interview, previously.

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JoJo Anisko
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My sister hates peas (and mashed potatoes). As a kid, she'd sneak her peas off her plate, either to under the rim of her plate or by tossing them into a planter near the dining table.

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“She would also trick us by telling us the food we were served was actually a different dish—one that she knew we tolerated. For example, my brother and I hated salmon but loved tuna fish. It never struck us as odd that sometimes we were served ‘pink tuna fish’ because it turned out we were actually totally fine with salmon, we just didn’t like the idea of salmon for some reason,” the baking and cooking expert told us.

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“Of course, when we were in our late teens our mum eventually fessed up and let us know that we had been eating eggs and salmon for decades and we might as well accept the fact that we like them now!” Jessica said.

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Anon822209
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is totally something my kid would have done, especially the part about the remote controlls. He's been squirreling those away since he was old enough to understand what they do.

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kitten levels tokyo
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Most governments recommend keeping a small supply of non-perishable food on hand for emergency situations. C’mon mom.

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Jods
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Those little boxes of raisins that were perfect for lunch boxes. My sister was asked not to include them in my nephews lunch anymore because he insisted on eating them one at a time and he usually hadn’t finished them before the end of lunchtime. The number of habits he’s picked up from me is incredible!

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Alas, not every ingredient can be disguised as something else or hidden in mashed potatoes. Besides, kids are pretty insightful: some of them quickly catch on that you’re trying to broaden their palates. Though it’s not just kids who are wary of new dishes. Grown-ups have plenty of food-related hangups, too.

“I am ashamed to admit it, but I didn’t try a shocking number of different foods until I was in my late teens,” pie artist Jessica told Bored Panda that she barely ate any “vegetable that wasn’t a carrot.” Things changed as she grew older, though.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This young lady may have some unresolved “I NEED A BANANA FOR SCALE” issues.

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“It wasn’t until I was invited to my first boyfriend’s home for dinner that it occurred to me that it might be time to broaden my culinary horizons. His mother frequently cooked ‘weird’ (not actually weird at all, but new to me) foods that I had always assumed I hated,” she said.

“But out of a desire to not offend her, I, for the first time in my life, ate the hated foods… and it turned out I liked them! Societal pressure trumps parental tricks, threats, and bribery every time,” the food expert joked.

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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Reading this brought back memories of oranges in my school backpack that went in orange and came out a mouldy green mess at term end

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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My daughter was around 3 and staying at my MIL's for the day. My BIL lived with her and kept an eye on my daughter while my MIL went grocery shopping. He noticed she was frequently walking behind a chair in the living room. She was riding a toy tow truck around most of the time (foot powered). He waited until she was out of the room and found a bunch of candy wrappers behind the chair. My MIL kept the candy dish on a shelf on the china cupboard and pushed it all the way to the back so she couldn't reach it on her own. BIL told her he had to go to the bathroom and to be good for a couple of minutes. He snuck down the hall and spied on her. She took the tow truck over to the cupboard, stood on the tow truck seat and used the grab hook to snag the bowl. After taking a piece, she used another tool to push it back to its original position. If she'd thrown the wrappers in the garbage she might not have gotten caught.

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Meanwhile, recently, comedy writer Ariane Sherine explained to Bored Panda that the secret behind an impactful tweet or social media comment is making the post “short and snappy.”

She added that most people on Twitter “are lovely” and that creators attract the types of followers that match their content. "I find you get back what you put out—post negative tweets, you attract negative people, and the same is true of positive tweets."

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