How to include vegetables in a kid’s diet
Do you encounter trouble getting your kids to eat their veggies? I sure do.
My daughter used to be great about trying and eating just about anything and then she turned 2 ?. Now it is pretty much impossible to get her to eat something other than corn when it comes to food. So I had to come up with some fun and sometimes clever ways to get some vegetables in her. Here are a few of my favorites.
1) Make large pot of veggie soup, and then add few fun noodle shapes. You can use alphabet noodles or look for some fun novelty shapes. You may be able to find some cartoon characters, toy and sports shapes etc. I encounter even seen pumpkin and Christmas tree shapes. With a little luck your kids will be too busy spelling words, rather identifying the shape to notice all the veggies they are eating in the soup.
2) If you can’t make them eat it, make them drink it. Pour some vegetable juice over ice and add a straw, a cocktail umbrella or a stick of celery and watch them drink it up. Your toddlers may not get as much fiber as eating the entire vegetable, but getting them to drink their groceries is better than not getting any food in their system.
3) have you tried offering them few raw groceries with some ranch dressing to dip them in? Many kids who don’t care much for cooked groceries will eat them up if they can dip them. Just grab a bag of baby carrots and cut up some red and yellow peppers and few cucumber. Arrange them on a plate with a little bit of ranch dressing or your favorite vegetable dip on the side.
4) Take it even a step further and let them create artwork out of their food. Offer raw groceries in different colors and shapes and encourage them to make a vegetable collage on their plate. You can easily make a face using slices of cucumber as eyes, a baby carrot as nose and a slice of red pepper as a mouth. You can use watercress or shredded carrots or even some cheese as hair. Before you know it, you’ll find them sampling their “art supplies”.
5) To get them to eat more groceries at dinnertime try a little salad bar. Put out few lettuce, some sliced or chopped tomato, slices of cucumber, shredded carrot, slices of red and yellow peppers, tiny broccoli flowerets and something else you can think of. You may also want to offer them some choices when it comes to salad dressing. Favorites in our house are Ranch, Italian, Catalina, and French. To top it all of set out few croutons and shredded cheese.
6) Get the toddlers together and make a cold veggie pizza. Start out with a can of crescent rolls. Unroll the dough, but don’t pull the triangle shapes apart. rather push the seams together and bake on a baking sheet according to the package directions. Let the sheet of dough cool completely, then spread with few cr?me cheese (we like a veggie or herb flavored one) and top with some thinly sliced raw veggies. Cut into squares and serve.
7) Get them involved in the kitchen especially when it comes to cooking. Ask them to wash the vegetables, if they are old enough let them cut vegetables (under your supervision of course), let them help you stir, or something else you can think of that would be age appropriate. You’ll be amazed at how proud they will be of their finished product. Believe me, they’ll try just about anything if they made it.
8) If everything else fails, hide the groceries in other food. My mom used to make us some special orange mashed potatoes. We thought it was very fancy, but all she did was to cook few carrots with the potatoes and mashed them right in there. You can also cover broccoli with tomato sauce or cheese. Think of a dish your little one really enjoys and sneak a little bit of veggie in there.
Give a some of these methods a try and see which ones work best for your your little one. Keep at it and sooner or later they will start to develop a taste for food. Visit the site parenting-website.com to get more ideas on this topic.
Mike is a parent. His articles are based on his personal experience. He is also the owner of the site parenting-website.com where he offers FREE e-books on various Parenting issues written by top writers who are experts in the parenting field. On this site he also reviews top selling parenting products that will help you raise your children in the right manner. Visit parenting-website.com to download these free e-books and see which product suits your children the best.
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