Cocoa Pebbles and candy for Cullen: Handling a picky eater

  When I was little one of my favorite books was Bread and Jam for Frances. It was about a little badger named Frances who was such a picky eater all she ate was bread and jam. My favorite part of the book was the vivid descriptions of food. I would stare at the page with Frances carefully laid lunch in the end and wonder how tasty a lobster salad sandwich would be. I also just could not understand Frances with all the tasty things around her why would she choose to just eat bread and jam?
     Now I am dealing with a picky eater of my own, Cullen is loathe to try new things, certain textures really bother him and there is a very short lust of things he likes. The other day I made homemade macaroni and cheese. It was delicious if I do say so myself but Cullen would not touch it. He stared at his plate with a glum expression. This was our argument word for word.
Me: It is yummy!
Him: No yummy
Me: just take a bite
Him: *hummming*
Me: You are hungry, please eat
Him: cocoa pebbles?
Me: here just take a bite * shoves macaroni in his mouth*
Him: *gags violently and spits macaroni out*
  The thing is that he is always hungry he sneaks into the kitchen constantly and sneaks snacks out. Our sits at the table and waits to be fed or brings me a bowl so I will but a snack in it. But all he wants to eat is cereal or snacks. The last couple meals I have made go untouched by him.
    He does like chicken nuggets, hamburgers, and pizza but a healthy diet does not consist of those foods. There are very few veggies that he will even consider. Even then I have to gussy them up pretty heavily with cheese or sauce to make them paltable. He likes fruit, apples the most and strawberries. Even then his fruit consumption is patchy, sometimes discovering a full bowl of fruit in the kitchen he will take a bite out of each apple and then carefully place them each back in the bowl. Last summer we had a vegetable garden but many did not make it past the early fruit stage because young veggies look like apples at first and he would sneak bites of the veggies on the vine hoping for apple and being greatly dissapointed with squash and pumpkin.
    When we discover a new food he likes I try to provide it for him as much as possible. It scares me sometimes how little he eats. Tonight he acted like he was starved and I sat him down to a plate of spaghetti and garlic bread a sometimes favorite but tonight he ate maybe three bites of bread and then wandered around the kitchen aimlessly opening cabinets and whining. The photo was is of a rare night where I gave him something new to eat and he ate it and liked it (you can also see all the open cabinets, we call him the cullygeist)