We’ve all been there…veggies flying across the room, tantrums, fists pounding the table and screaming that could make us want to lose our minds. Let’s not forget about the messes, oh the messes that incur from one small request.
What could cause such a gut wrenching reaction from a toddler you ask? You guessed it, the dreaded vegetable.
Why is it that some toddlers just find vegetables so revolting. Are they really that bad? We know that they really need to eat them but how can we get them to actually do it?
Here are 7 tips to get your toddler to ACTUALLY eat their veggies:
1.Hide them…you heard me
Yes, we all want them to eat them on their own, and they will, but sometimes it doesn’t always happen that way at first.
This is a trick I have used for over a decade! Just the other day I was explaining the trick to my eldest daughter, who now has children of her own. She was amazed as I revealed all of the health foods I have been putting into her favorites all of these years. She is now a believer in the method herself. She also is a really healthy eater as an adult.
You see, the thing is, what kids can’t see, they can’t scream about. It’s just that simple. I have a couple regular recipes you can use to get kids to eat all kinds of things, including superfoods you would probably never even eat yourself. I get that we want all of our kids to just LOVE veggies on their own, but sometimes it requires some creative innovation at the start.
Click the links below for the recipes:
·Superfood Ice pops
I’ve never seen a child turn down an ice pop, have you? This one is as vibrant in color as you like and doesn’t have traces of “good for you” at all. It just tastes delicious. You’ll be amazed at what is inside!
Lucious hidden veggie mac & cheese
If your child loves creamy, fatty tasting foods, or just pasta in general, this one is for you. My toddler adores it and I can’t tell you how often I’m getting veggies into her diet.
2. Reshape them
You’d be amazed at how much just changing the shape of a food can do for you. Look at the bento boxes from Japan. Who wouldn’t love to eat foods shaped into beautiful are or their favorite characters?
I know, I know, that’s a fair amount of work. Well it depends on how much effort you want to put in.
If you are artsy and have the time here is your time to shine. You’ll be that mom that sends her kids incredibly crafted lunches to school. But if you have less time on your hands, cutting fruits and veggies into the shapes of hearts and other recognizable shapes and arranging them in a colorful pattern is easy and effortless. It still gets the job done.
You’ll be amazed at what your kids will eat if it’s in a cool shape that they like or arranged creatively.
3. Limit their other options from a young age
I think one big mistake parents make is not realizing how important it is to train our kids palettes and habits from birth.
What do I mean?
Well, it’s like this, if you eat burgers and fries and chocolate on a regular what do you think you are going to crave?
You guess it!
You see our body ends up getting used to certain things the more we do them (built in habit) and tends to reject the things that it is not used to. Plus, our taste buds are more sensitive at birth, and we need to build up a tolerance to bitter foods by repeated exposure. Especially if they are in competition with foods around them like high fatty goodness or a tempting sugary snacks.
Expose them to a wide array of fruits and veggies from a young age, and regularly. Limit high fat or sugar foods and you will see them grow some personal favorites in the foods you would rather them eat.
4. Understand how a certain vegetable tastes and tone it down
Every parent who understands the benefits of greens would love their kids to eat them, but how. We can’t just shove bunch of kale or collard greens in their mouth, especially considering how bitter they are. Eating them in their raw form, even cooked, could be hard for little eaters who have highly sensitive tastebuds naturally.
Adding green vegetables into their diet little by little (in the case that they don’t throw out anything they detect is green) or even combining them with other foods that seem more inviting could be the trick. Actually, adding any vegetable, in small quantities, mixed with other foods, makes it more likely that your child will eat it.
I always thinly slice or chopped vegetables and add them to soups my kids already love, wrap them in puff pastry or samosa filling so it is less visible. They can’t as easily detect what gets lost in things they already love. They also are more distracted and pay less attention.
My kids have eaten tons of veggies this way.
5. Start at a young age
Like anything else in life habits of all kinds begin at a young age. Wether it’s not cleaning up after yourself, using foul language or procrastinating or poor eating habits, if a habit goes unchecked it can lead to the same horrible habit into adulthood.
I began feeding my kids a wealth of fruits and vegetables from a very young age. I don’t mean from a prepackaged bottle, I mean if you want kids to hate veggies that could be the way.
I picked fresh ones, in season, and steamed or boiled and mashed them. I cut them up very small or into fun shapes and ate them with them. Creating a culture of love for fruits and veggies from young will take you a long way and help create a life long habit of healthy eating for your child. I did it and can say that my children now prefer eating vegetables to most other foods.
6. Eat veggies yourself
So, we get to the obvious tip. You can’t ask your kids to do what you don’t actually do yourself. Science has proven that kids learn more from example then from what we say to them. If you are constantly wolfing down bags of candies and meat laden fatty foods don’t expect your child not to do the same.
In the end, the best thing we can do for our children is be the best example. It’s definitely not “do what I say not what I do”. That hasn’t worked much other than make one look like a hypocrite.
If you are finding it hard for your child to eat vegetables or fruits even, ask yourself, “how much vegetables am I eating in front of them myself?”
7. Just say NO
I know it’s hard. Their cute little eyes are looking up at you saying, please give me a lollipop or candy bar. Please mommy don’t make me eat my vegetables I’m going to die. We all have heard them.
The truth is, you just have to learn to do what is best for them, not what they want. If we all listened to our kids whims they would be shoving fistfuls of candy into their mouths while jumping up and down on the couch until two in the morning. It’s just not reasonable.
You can execute choice, but the best thing you can do for them is just say no to the things you know will harm them, short term and long term. They may give you a fight now, but I promise they will thank you later in adulthood.
I can attest that mine did.
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What do you do get your kids to eat vegetables?
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