How to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables

My children will only eat raw vegetables but that’s a good thing, right? It has not always been this way. I remember having a conversation with our pediatrician when Lira was small because I was concerned she was not getting enough vegetables. She suggested some things that really helped.

1. Serve vegetables with a dipping sauce. Choose whatever your child likes: ranch, honey mustard, peanut butter, honey, KETCHUP. No kidding. As gross as it might sound, if it works…
2. When the children are hungry and dinner is still half an hour away, it is an excellent time to bring out the vegetables. Just put some raw veggies into a bowl with a sauce cup of ranch on the side. If they are really THAT hungry, they will eat. Let them fill up if they want to because after all, these are the vitamins their bodies need.
3. Always have a vegetable on the plate. Every lunch and dinner, there will be vegetables served in our home. Even if we order pizza, the fresh veggies come out.
4. Start with what they like and expand from there. For instance, Franc loves to pick the peas out of a pod. So, for a while, I was making things like green beans and letting him just eat the beans out of the middle. Wasteful? Perhaps. But then I started serving just edamame, beans and peas. I told him that this was his FAVORITE PART of the beans… the inside. He eats them up.
5. Bribe with dessert. Okay, this might not be a popular suggestion but it really does work, especially with Lira. And dessert doesn’t have to be ice cream. How about a yogurt parfait?

Things to avoid:

*Don’t overcook the vegetables. How appetizing is it to look at a pile of broccoli that has paled from boiling and sits limply on the plate?

* Don’t use too much salt. A child’s kidneys cannot handle as much sodium as an adults. Keep the salt to a minimum.

* Eat your vegetables. Children will follow your example. If you are not eating your veggies, why should they?

* Don’t stress out. For most, the apprehension of vegetables is just a temporary thing. My brother used to caused tremendous conflict at our dinner table because of refusing to eat vegetables. Now, he is a healthy adult who LOVES salads.

How do you get your children to eat their vegetables?

Lovingly linked at The Mommy Club: Resources and Solutions. Fabulous!