Kids are very fickle when it comes to eating. Veggies often get the shaft from kids when it comes to food. I luckily was able to get my two daughters to eat vegetables at an early age and they continue to eat them to this day. My oldest is almost 4 and my youngest is 2, but they love their veggies. They even eat the ones every kid seems to hate like broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, asparagus and even beets.
MAKE IT FUN:
We have some friends whose children only eat mac and cheese, hot dogs, pizza etc and refuse to eat vegetables as well. Their mom doesn’t eat vegetables at all either so I think that makes it tougher. Your child will definitely follow your habits whether good or bad or if you want them to or not, that’s just how it goes.
I watched our friends two little boys one day and tricked them into eating vegetables by making it fun. They boys are 2 and 4, right around my daughters ages.Here’s what I did:
1) I made them help me make lunch by telling them we were going to have fun and play a game.
2) I had them interact with the food by showing them how I cut up carrots. Each time I cut the carrot I made a funny noise like a beeping sound. They thought it was hysterical.
3) Then, I started to pop the pieces of carrots into my mouth and the mouths of my 3.5 and 2 year old and made a whole new sound effect. They thought that was hysterical too.
4) I then had them open their mouths and fed them the carrots making the same sound effect. They loved it and cleaned me out of baby carrots and had fun doing it.
Getting kids to eat what you want them to is all about approach. Fun often works but like I mentioned earlier, kids are fickle so sometimes even that doesn’t work. BUT for me it’s worked more often than not, with everything from brussel sprouts to hard boiled eggs.
Using toys to help kids get excited about eating veggies is fun too. My girls love to play in their little kitchen filled with plastic fruits, vegetables and other groceries. There is no doubt in my mind that this has influenced them greatly in their desire to eat foods. Here are some examples. Food Playsets
We also have fun watching shows like Yo Gabba Gabba and singing the songs about food. They have a great segment called “There’s a party in my tummy”. The characters all eat foods that are good for them that end up in the party in their tummy. The majority of the foods are veggies, like green beans, carrots etc.
Check it out:
HIDE THE VEGGIES:
My youngest daughter was much harder to convince to eat veggies than her older sister. But she loved rice. So when she was about 16-20 months old, I would mix finely chopped broccoli with brown or white rice and some finely chopped chicken and she gobbled it up. Sometimes I’d even add in some crushed pineapple to throw a different combination at her. I found a recipe on line for rice with chicken, mandarin oranges, carrots, broccoli and even cauliflower. When the veggies are all finely cut up, my daughter ate them without noticing. It was awesome. But the best recipe I found that my daughter gobbled up was putting plain carrot and or sweet potato baby food on Bolboli pizza bread, with some mozzarella, finely chopped mushrooms, olives and sometimes ham and they love it!
SHAKE IT AND JUICE IT UP:
There are some really great veggie juices out there now. They are not always the first or best option because most of them contain a lot of sugar but if your kids don’t eat fruits or veggies, and you’ve tried everything go for the juice. When selecting a juice that’s right for you, make sure that it contains an adequate percentage of vegetable juices and not mostly fruit juice with a little bit of vegetable juice. The highest contents of sugar in V8 splash. V8 fusion is a much better option but I prefer Vruit which mixes carrots with different fruit combos like apple, tropical, berry etc. and it contains major vitamins like A and C. Getting your kids to drink veggie based juice should be pretty easy.
But I encourage you to get creative.
My oldest daughter loves what she calls “Daddy’s super shake”. It was easy to get my kid to drink this shake because I made it fun and told her the truth about how much fresh fruit and vegetables would help her grow big and strong and be a big girl. Here’s my recipe:
1 banana
1 sliced up apple with the skin on
handfull of blueberries
handful of baby carrots
1 small crown of broccoli
add just enough water to cover the fruits & veggies and blend it up.
GO FRESH OR FROZEN NOT CANNED:
Canned vegetables are gross. Plain and simple. They have less nutrients than fresh veggies and they even at times come soaking in preservatives. Use as many fresh veggies as you can and when you can’t, use frozen. I actually prefer frozen peas over fresh peas and so do my kids. But frozen green beans can get rubbery really easily so you have to be careful the way you cook them.
ADD SOME FLAVOR:
Don’t make everything so bland because they are a kid. You’d be surprised what my kids eat. Stuffed mushrooms, bell peppers, veggie lasagna, pumpkin raviolis etc. Get creative and give them some flavor.
Use garlic, some sea salt and black pepper to give your veggies some punch. Cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil is great too, and in all honesty a little butter from time to time doesn’t affect the metabolism of a growing child. Cheese is always an added treat to throw on broccoli, cauliflower etc.
Try things like spinach quiches, ravioli’s or tortellini filled with veggies. Give them some flava!
A GREAT RESOURCE: TOP 100 RECIPES FOR HAPPY KIDS
The Top 100 Recipes for Happy Kids: Keep Your Child Alert, Focused, Active and Healthy (Top 100 Recipes For…)
I picked up this book from Amazon a while back. It’s amazing. It’s fun and easy recipes for your children. Lots of veggies and lots of fruit. It’s been a treasure chest of great food for our family. This book rocks.
Below are some more books and resources along the same lines.
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