Any advice on how to get a child to eat their vegetables?
My son likes broccoli, peas, and edamame. I always offer him a choice of 1 or the other. He HAS to have 1. But he gets to choose so that makes him happy cause he has control over which one. BUT I have control over the fact that he HAS to have a vegetable.
I make my kids plates in little designs around the holiday themes. Like for october and halloween--we do pumpkin shapes on the plate. I cut up the veggies really small and decorate the plate in that design. They at least try it and then I give 2 other choices that they really like. One new choice and two they like. Good luck and keep trying!
Cheese, I could put cheese on dog poop and my kids would eat it.
By modeling the behavior you want. EAT THEM YOURSELF.
How old is the child? For a toddler - over one year - make them finger friendly.
Make sure that you are offering your child the same things you are eating. They will follow your lead.
Dip. Salad dressing, fruit spread, ketchup, bbq sauce, peanut butter.
You can either cover it up (cheese/ketchup), hide it (pureed and add to sauces) or dip it (ranch/blue cheese dressings).
Mostly I followed Robin's tip below....bribe them.
How old is the child?
cheese on dog poop....
LOL
You can make meal time a war zone or you can make it easier on everyone. I suggest you decide what you want them to gain from the veggies. Do you want to force them to eat them alone? By themselves like having chunks of broccoli on their plate? Or broccoli with cheese sauce that makes it more yummy? Or do you just want them to eat a better balanced meal so they are getting the nutrients?
There are a lot of ways to make sure they are getting the vitamins and minerals if you just think about it.
I get the kids Spaghetti O's a lot for snack time. They have a serving of veggies in each serving. The tomato sauce is a veggie, the onions and celery are veggies, there are more too, carrots and other stuff if you read the labels of foods like this you will see that there are other ways of getting the nutrients in them.
Spaghetti is a good food. It has the complex carbohydrates in the pasta and the tomato sauce has tomatoes and so many other veggies already cooked in to it.
Find recipes that disguise the veggies and make them not blatantly out in front of them. They will eat the food because it tastes good and then they will like them when they get older.
I can pretty much guarantee you that if you make meal time a battle and force them to conform to your demands and eat their veggies before they get up from the table all you will accomplish is that they will never eat a veggie once they move out of your house again. They will live on candy bars and popcorn, pop and crackers. Kids that grow up being bullied into eating food they hate almost always will not eat it as an adult. They will turn their backs on it and it will be much later in life that they will finally decide they want to try them again because older people think it's cool to eat cauliflower/broccoli with ranch dip at just about every party that has a veggie tray.
Depends on the age of the child.
Put them on your plate and say how delicious they are, then say, "Oh look, you don't have any on your plate." Don't focus on how they HAVE to eat them but make it more about wanting to eat them.
Hide them - see "Deceptively Delicious" and other similar cookbooks. Butternut squash puree mixed in with the mac and cheese, for example.
Remember that it often takes a child about 8-10 tries with a new food to develop a liking. Also textures are sometimes tough for kids so try as many ways as possible to give them the same food. Soups, tacos, and a dip on the side are all ways to get kids to eat veggies in different forms. A lot of kids like a "salad bar" set up so they can take a little of everything - make a game of it.
And decorate with food - make a smily face on a piece of toast or on a small tortilla, for example. Red pepper slice for the smile, carrot "coins" for eyes, cauliflower floret for the nose, broccoli florets for the earrings, shredded lettuce or raw spinach for the hair, and so on.
I put everything in pancakes - you'd be astounded!
Try not to give a child a separate meal from what you're eating. Yeah, right - I know, easier said than done.
emmy didnt have much of a choice. she ate salads from 1 on up because she wanted whatever i ate...she always ate veggies, raw, steamed and so on...although she J. started accepting them with cheese, prior to that she'd eat them and whine that she;d rather them plain
i always made emmy take turns in circles around her plate when she was really little and then she J. grew to like them.
have your kid help prepare the veggies and they always taste better. also i use to tell her she was shrinking if she didnt eat veggies and she believed M.. Oh and we'd pretend broccli was trees and she was a dino or we'd have asparagus races and see who could finish first
The traditional advice to to be consistent and just keep trying like 10-15 days in a row. Give them the same vegetable over and over again everyday and ask them to have one bite and then stick with that and then 2 bites and so on.I have never tried this so I don't know if it works but that is what 'they' say. depends on what is going on though some kids have texture issues like mine and I don't think he will ever eat a vegetable other than corn. He is a special case though.
Have you tired smoothies with vegetables? Butter and salt on them? some vegetables like zucchini get a sweet flavor when cooked slow in butter. I don't know but good luck.
Try them raw. My younger son will only eat raw veggies.
Ditto as to what Sherri G. said. Try to serve them raw. My son says zucchini and cauliflower 'taste gross when cooked but raw they almost dont even have a taste'.
Hello.
I haven't read the many responses so this could be a duplicate.
Offer frozen vegetables. I by chance offered my eldest daughter (maybe 3 at the time) some before I threw them into a pot. She loved them. Her favorite is cauliflower. In comparison to canned they are way better. They also taste different from raw, but yet are just as good and nutritious.
When it comes to salad my daughters don't like the red lettuce I buy. Grandma offered spinach leaves and they love that so I offer that as lettuce. They also like to dip so we offer a small amount of ranch or salsa on the side.
What I learned is kids just don't eat like us and we need to consider other options to get them to at least start eating something new.
Good luck!
My two ways are, getting the kid involved in cooking, and letting the kid choose which vegetable. A young child doesn't really have to cook, of course, but with my son, I got teeny-tiny cookie cutters. I'll sometimes steam broccoli, slice the stems, and let him cut the stem-circles into hearts and stars.
Mostly, though, I let him pick his vegetable b/c I'm exhausted/lazy and it's less of a production. I wind up defrosting a lot of green peas.
My kids love veggie burgers with no bun. And ketchup to dip them in.
I made the food and put it on the table and they had to at least try it. Most ate vegetables well. One daughter to this day will not feed her kids peas since she had to eat them. Poor girl used to leave the table and I'd pick up her plate and under it was a circle of peas surrounding the plate. I didn't make them eat all of them but at least try them. The suggestions you've gotten about dips, etc. are good to try. I think though if you eat the vegetables and other kids aren't allowed to make 'yuk' sounds about it then it's just expected and eating as a family helps too.
Get a juicer, blend thehealthy stuff with an apple or pear or grapes. Or juice a green veggie and mix 1/2 of that with one of his favorite juices. Take all greens...broccoli, asparagus...whatever you like, boil 'til super soft in chicken broth, let cool, throw in blender 'til smooth. Once smooth make a smooth veggie soup. Blend down 1 veggie and mix it in with tomato sauce for pasta. Blend down yellow squash or sweet potatoes and mix in with mac n cheese. Pree veggies and blend them into your meatballs.
I do not know if this book is still in print, as it was said to be plagarized by Seinfeld's wife, but it was great concept.
http://www.amazon.com/Deceptively-Delicious-Simple-Secret...
