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I can't remember the name of the "theory", vut we abide by the "you don't have to eat it" rule. I was a very picky eater growing up, and my parents never pushed me, so I want to respect my daughter the same way. I make whatever dinner for the family, and she doesn't need to even try it. I always have one thing one the table I know she will eat (bread, eggplant, pasta, rice, broccoli, watermelon, etc.) but otherwise I don't worry. She eats a balanced diet over the course of the week. And yes, it hurts when I've spent time on dinner and she refuses everything but bread, but my DH appreciates it! And sometimes she surprises us with what she wants to try, and what she likes! Eventually she will try more and more as she sees us enjoying a variety of foods. But I'm not willing to battle at the table or force my kid to try something that they think is gross. It's her body, she doesn't have to eat what she doesn't want to.

I will preface this by saying that my daughter is 15 months old and is not a picky eater. Even since starting solids she's eaten anything I've put in front of her with one or two exceptions. She also isn't old enough to tell me she doesn't want something I've given her.

I had to Google Ellen Slatter. I've never heard of her. I think what I read makes a lot of sense! It's what I do. I offer DD her meal. If she eats it all, great! If not that's ok too. I know she'll get enough to eat over the course of the day. She eats breakfast and lunch in her learning tower in the kitchen. I'm in the kitchen with her interacting, but I don't always eat at the same time. I prefer to eat my lunch once she's down for a nap so I don't have to share. Dinner we do eat at the table as a family, if DH is home from work. If not it's just the two of us. I don't make toddler meals or really deconstruct anything for her. If I make something that I think may be a choking hazard I'll make an extra side for DD or give her some cheese with her meal.

I do think it's reasonable to cook with your child'a preferences in mind. I do the same for DH and myself. He doesn't like greens, I don't like eggplant, so I don't cook those. We eat them when we are out or at someone else's house. Once DD can voice her opinions if there is something she just doesn't like I won't make it, or not very often. I just want to keep meals as stress free as possible, which I admit is easy when you don't have a picky eater.

I have a 3.5 year old who is and always has been a great eater. I mean this relative to her peers- she definitely has days where she only eats carbs.
She has some things she can choose from for breakfast and lunch. Dinner is whatever we decide to make. We have basically stopped adding anything spicy to our food and just add hot sauce later because around age three she decided she didn't like spice. We don't make her anything special. I do try to include something I know she likes, and for things like curry I serve the curry next to the rice and the vegetable rather than mixing (she will usually eat the rice and veggie and try the curry). We include her in the meal plan conversation and she sometimes chooses a dinner for the week.
I don't ask her to take bites or try things unless it's a "dessert night" which are random, only if we have something. If that's the case she has to try a bite of dinner and then she can have dessert. We give her a small dessert but don't take away the dinner. 9 times out of 10 she will eat more dinner after her tiny dessert
I try not to make a big deal about how much she is eating or what she is eating. We serve healthy foods most of the time and if she's hungry she eats
The best advice I got was to look at her food intake over a week. So some days she might eat a bagel, mac and cheese, and like two bites of rice. But then the next day she might have a meal like yesterday where she ate a whole plate of salad (after refusing to eat greens unless they were in her smoothie).

We just don't make food a power struggle. We are just starting solids with my son now so I will find out if it's nature or nurture with my daughter!

ETA: breakfast is the one meal she eats alone (and it's because my husband gets up with her and he is getting ready for work while she eats). We sit down together and eat lunch and dinner. We always say a blessing and light a candle at dinner.

On the hungry, sad, polite kid note, I try to remember that my child chose to be hungry. So they don't need me to save them from their choice. But they do need me to help them manage their feelings and remind them that they have control over whether or not they want to be hungry next time. Same way I'd help a kid who was given a choice between the park and the zoo, chose one, then regretted their choice after we were there.

@Cole: oh I'm awesome...in online writing
Consistency is haaaaaard. I mess up in implementing all the time, but retraining how I think about these things has really helped.
I also agree with PP that it helps to think about food consumed over a week. Today my youngest ate a single piece of pasta for dinner, but the other day she had two chicken thighs and a ton of peas.

We are really bad about family dinners, because my DH is often not home until after bedtime. I do still try to follow the division of responsibility for meal times with our toddler. I use a divided plate and I offer a variety of foods. If it's a dinner I don't think will go over well, then I'll make sure there are more things that she will eat in the other sections of the plate (fruit/cheese/favourite veggies like carrots or cucumber). I will encourage her to smell the food and take a taste, but I tell DD (22 months) if you don't like it, you don't have to eat it. If it's a new food, I will eat with her so she is more motivated to try. If we're having a meal that is spicy I will make some sort of variation for her or give her the food without the sauce, but I will let her try mine to see if she likes the spice.

We did baby led weaning so DD has always eaten mostly what we do. I don't know if it's because of that or if it's just pure luck, but she has always been a pretty decent eater. There are still plenty of things she doesn't want at this point, so we always have healthy items on her plate that we know are a hit. She's not a big meat fan, so if our dinner involves meat, we'll still put a little on her plate, but we always have other protein available (often eggs). So, tonight we made chicken taco salads, and on her plate she had chicken, lettuce, corn, and avocado from the salad (so, most of the deconstructed salad) and also had cherry tomatoes and eggs. She tried the chicken and lettuce, ignored the corn, then mostly stuck with everything else. We encourage her to take a bite of everything, but don't turn it into a battle. We'll just nonchalantly say something like, "Okay, you can try it next time!". We've been able to trick her into trying things by asking if we can eat X off her plate. She is in the "mine!" phase and gets possessive, then suddenly wants to eat it.

Now that DD is getting older (she's 2.5) I allow her to pull up a stool and watch/"help" in the kitchen too. She often wants to try the food I'm cutting so I feel like it's a good way to keep introducing more foods.

I've heard it's SO common for toddlers to go through a really picky phase though. I can't imagine how frustrating that is!