The other night I was speaking to my seventy year old father, who is "Just a kid", about appetite fatigue. He responded with something very interesting. He reminded me that even the Children of Israel tired of the manna that the Lord provided for them while they were wandering in the wilderness. I thought, "Holy cow you're right!"
In the Book of Numbers 21:5 we read:
And the people spake against God and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.
The light bread they spoke of was manna which, by the way, had been keeping them from starving to death. At first the Israelites sound whiney and ungrateful, a judgement that is easy to make 4000 years later from the comfort of my home. On second thought, can we really blame them for being tired of it? After all, they ate it for forty years!
The way to prevent appetite fatigue is obvious.
#1 Store a greater variety of food and learn how to produce a greater variety of menu options from what you store. That means that instead of storing wheat, you store wheat, oats, rye, corn, millet, barley, and rice as well as other grains, and a multitude of legumes.
Keep track of what you learn and begin to build a broad index of recipes to pull from. Move farther away from store bought premade foods and closer to homemade food that you have created from the food you have on hand.
#2 Store foods that you would not typically think of for food storage. We get so caught up in the idea that we have to have wheat and powdered milk that we don't always consider chocolate chips, or maple syrup. There is no law chisled in stone that says that food storage has to be boring and taste like cardboard. What your food storage tastes like it up to you.
#3 Don't be afraid to be creative. Pancakes are just pancakes until you add chocolate chips, or nuts, or smother them in tart homemade applesauce and cinnamon. Pancakes become the foundation of a new breakfast with different flavors and textures.
#4 Start introducing new even unusual items to your family now. Unless new items are introduced to your family regularly, they may not be so willing to give something new a try when it really counts. I remember the first time I fed my children millet. Before they had even tasted it they rolled up their noses at it. It was unlike any grain they had seen before. I told them it was power pellets that would give them super energy. They gobbled it up and requested power pellets for breakfast for years. I am tooo sly. :)
#5 Get and keep family members involved in the kitchen. Talk to your children about the food they are cooking with. Children are always more willing to eat their own inventions because they have invested in it personally.