Help with Picky Eating

Slowly sneak it in his food. Start with a spinach leaf, chop it real small like parsley flakes and add it to his spaghetti or soup.

Increase it little by little. This will change his pallet to like it. My 7 YO will now eat green beans, spinach, carrots, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, chopped cooked onion, tomatoes, etc. She is pretty good about eating now.

I hide them in my DDs regular food once in a while. Like tonight... We had burritos. So I put some peas and carrots in the food processor, and mixed that with the taco meat. I also switched out her lettuce for spinach. She ate the whole thing without realizing. :)

I also give her a tiny portion of what she really likes, along with a reasonable portion of veggies. She can't have more yummy until she eats the veggies.

For my DD, allowing her to put pepper and Parmesan cheese on them herself usually gets results.

You can also replace the noodles in a lot of dishes with spaghetti squash.

You might try getting the sneaky chef cookbook. It has plenty if recipes to sneak healthy foods into your kid. :)

while i disagree with sneakiness in most of its forms, i'm behind it in this situation. it's far preferable to disguise veggies than to 'make' kids eat them and set up a lifelong issue.
i hasten to add that i would never lie to a kid about it. if they ask suspiciously 'did you put veggies in that taco meat?' i'd answer truthfully and casually. too much laser-like focus on EAT YOUR VEGGIES almost inevitably backfires.
i think it's a great idea to put a small spoonful of veggies in their natural form on the plate, encouraging but not demanding that the child eat them. you don't want the veg to become the enemy, but often familiarity takes away the stigma.
my kids were anti-veggie campaigners, and my rotten older son, now 26, still avoids anything green as if it were the plague. so i got lots of different veggies in season, and steamed them, and pureed them, and froze them in ice cube trays, and popped them out into freezer bags. that way i always had fresh-frozen healthy veggies that could be seamlessly incorporated into all kinds of foods. not everything, not even at every meal. but my kids ended up eating a lot more veggies than they realized.
smoothies are also your friend. a carrot or a handful of kale magically disappears into a fruit smoothie. the only problem is the color. the dark greens are SO healthy and so easy to hide in a smoothie. unless you look at it.
good luck, mama!
:) khairete
S.

Sorry you have a picky eater... I didn't have picky eaters when they were little. I had to get creative with cooking due to my son's food allergies and soups of all kinds worked best to get them to eat non traditional veggies to give him the nutrients and proteins he needs (by default, my daughter and I get to eat this way too). When I cook (not sneaking in veggies necessarily) I mince carrots and then blend them with tomatoes & spinach - add that to my broth for soups. When I make meatballs (turkey) I add basil, onions, garlic, spinach/kale and carrots all very finely chopped in my processor. I always add beans (black beans mainly) Inadvertently, my kids ate a lot of soupy foods when they were small like yours. They enjoy them and I added celery, tomatoes, kale, squash everything I like to eat, but took them out or blended some in the broth and then served (the nutrients are there). Even now my daughter hates tomatoes and some green veggies- but I don't worry because the nutrients and veggies have been 'cooked in' to the rest of the food. I also make my own spaghetti sauce and add all the veggies I want to it. I hope this helps.

My 5 year old also does not like veggies. I put a spoonful on her plate and told her she had to eat two small pieces. After a week of that it we 3 then 4 etc. Now she will eat a small spoonful. I also made sure she understood that she needed veggies to stay strong a d healthy so she could do all the things she wants to do.

Still not her favorite think to eat, but a least she gets a litle bit in her.

Good luck!

We're there with our two little ones too. I hide veggies in meals many times. It's like the Ravioli commercial with the dad trying numerous times to say there's a serving of veggies in the can and the mom trying to make it so the kids doesn't hear. I make my own pasta sauces and add veggies to it. Tomatoes with whatever veggies I want and add seasonings into the blender, hit puree and let it work. It tastes great too! My hubby isn't a big veggie eater and likes it. I've also made biscuits with veggies in the dough. I follow the Bisquick recipe and mash up cooked veggies then put in the dough. Carrots look like cheese a bit, but you can't taste them. You can also blend some fresh fruits together and add a veggie and put the mix into a container and in the freezer for a frozen treat to enjoy.

Give a new veggie with one that they've had before. Also look at different ways to cook and/or season the veggies. Our home also has the "no thank you" bite. If a food isn't liked and they've never had it before, they have to have one decent size bite to try it and then if they don't like it, they can say no thank you and not eat anymore. It's not that they never have to eat it again, but not for a while or until it's offered again but prepared differently. Then it's another no thank you bite.

I agree with the mom who suggested offering a different veggies, hopefully there's one or two that will stick. Most kids will eat raw veggies as long as there's ranch dressing to dip them in.

On the other hand, don't stress too much over it. It's petty typical for kids that age to protest eating vegetables. If it makes you feel any better, my 14 year old has never, ever eaten vegetables or fruits for that matter. (he has food phobia issues) and he's very healthy (at least he never gets sick). He's thin and not as tall as he should be, but I'm sure that's just because he doesn't eat much of anything. One thing I've learned is, no matter how hard you try, you can't make a kid eat.

What about w hummus or ranch to dip.

There are SO many different fruits and vegetables out there that there has to be one or two that he will like. Just keep offering a variety, prepared different ways, and you will find something he likes.
I'm an adult, and I"m still finding that there are ways to prepare foods I thought I hated that I like. Beets, for example. The only way I ever had them growing up was pickled, and I hated them. A friend offered me some he had roasted, and I tried a smal serving just to be polite, fully expecting to take one bite, hate them, and push them aside. They were delicious!

What do you get to look like french fries? Mine is so picky I would love to give that a try!

I think kids just don't eat them and you have to make them unless you get really lucky and get a kid that likes them.