Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables
Each dinner time, at least one of my three kids is a hold-out who refuses a vegetable. It doesn’t even matter if I know that child loves that particular vegetable (didn’t she eat it happily the last four times I served it?). There is not always any reason. Kids just have a thing about vegetables, and that thing is a voice in their heads screaming, “Reject! Reject!”
That doesn’t have to be the case. Since I’m pretty bent on getting vegetables into the mix, I’ve tried many a trick to accomplish that. Some work one day, and others work another time depending on a kid’s whims and moods. Believe it or not, a study recently showed that you can sneak veggies into a kid’s diet and they will find the food tastes just as good as non-veggie versions.
Here are some tactics, tricks, and methods I have used with success to slip vegetables into my kids’ diets:
- Start them on vegetables really early, if it isn’t too late for that. Make green vegetables the first food your baby tries instead of fruits.
- Let your kids dip their veggies into something fun. A good choice is apple butter, which industrious parents can even make on their own.
- Let your kids make the food with vegetables. If they have a sense of ownership, they are more likely to eat their creations. You can help them prepare one of these vegetable recipes for kids.
- Hide the vegetables completely. Puree vegetables for sauces, or as dips. You can sometimes even get away with mixing vegetables into sauces without your kids noticing. When my oldest child hit an anti-veggie phase, I slipped green beans into one of her favorite foods (spaghetti). A vegetable she had been violently rejecting was suddenly gobbled up.
- Hit a local farmers market and let your kids pick their vegetables. Fresh produce always looks inviting at the market, and you might find your kids eager to try brightly-colored peppers.
- Start a pro-vegetable propaganda campaign. Whenever you can naturally work it in, mention some kid-cool benefits of eating vegetables (like they help you grow). You can also find books and TV shows that support your campaign. LazyTown, a children’s show that promotes healthy eating and exercise, shows its hero (”Sporticus”) eating fruits and vegetables to get strong and powerful.
- Give them vegetables you don’t like. It’s really easy to give our kids what we like, and you may not even realize you’re doing that. Perhaps you don’t like broccoli, asparagus, or brussels sprouts. Your kids might love the vegetables you hate. Since you don’t normally eat those vegetables, you may not even think of them. Get ideas on veggies you don’t eat with this list of vegetables.
Photo of fresh vegetables by Francois Carstens on stock.xchng.
New Slant on Getting Kids to Eat Fruits and Vegetables
By David Goldbeck
Co-author, The ABC’s of Fruits and Vegetables and Beyond: Delicious Alphabet Poems Plus Food, Facts, and Fun for Everyone
Everyone knows that if you want kids to learn things without resistance – languages for example - start them young. They same goes for eating habits. If parents want kids to have a positive attitude towards fruits and vegetables, it is time for a new approach. Certainly the “eat your vegetables, they’re good for you” scolding hasn’t worked. What will work is introducing these foods early in life and in new contexts in order to develop an easy-going relationship with them.
Several years ago, I decided to write such a book based on the alphabet. I resolved that if I could find something for the letter “X” the project would go forth. (You’ll have to read the book to see what I found.) The result is The ABC’s of Fruits and Vegetables and Beyond: Delicious Alphabet Poems Plus Food, Facts, and Fun for Everyone (Ceres Press, $16.95).
The book is unusual in many ways: First, I wanted an alphabet book so kids’ first words – their “ABCs” – would not be “B is for ball” and “T is for truck,” but for “banana” and “tomato.” Steve Charney filled the bill with clever and zany alphabet poems. A noted children’s entertainer, author and literacy promoter, Charney brought the same genius to the poems as in the songs he wrote for “The Bear in the Big Blue House,” Jim Henson’s Emmy-nominated show. I have to say, I fantasize about toddlers being fed while they (and their parents) recite: C is for the carrots/That rabbits like to munch. They eat them ’cause they love the taste – Me…I like the crunch
The second part, Beyond the ABC’s, which I was responsible for, takes kids to a delightful mixture of food lore, recipes, jokes, tongue twisters, unusual facts, shopping tips, recipes, and other fun- and thought-provoking activities. Children also discover where many fruits and vegetables come from, learn some Spanish words, and are directed to related books and websites. The goal is for them to translate their new knowledge into willful eating. After all who can resist Z is for zucchini/A word to flabbergast/Zucchini with linguini”– try to say that ten times fast!
Children’s nutrition expert, Fern Gale Estrow, MS, RD, CDN summed up The ABC’s of Fruits and Vegetables and Beyond when she wrote:
Charney and Goldbeck’s wonderful book of poems and activities will appeal to children as they move through elementary school, exploring food and farming using the alphabet to establish their place in history, geography, art, literature, science, the kitchen, and let us not forget jokes and riddles! Even adults will laugh and learn at least a fact or two – and maybe each of us (young and old) will find an interest in trying something new!
(c) cp