Sunday, October 17, 2010
How to Win the Veggie Battle
- Plan a fun family outing and visit a farm. Your children can pick out their own veggies and learn how they grow at the same time. It might make them appreciate them more.
- Keep their excitement alive by letting them help prepare the veggies for dinner – maybe trying out those new recipes that the farmer gives you.
- Be adventurous and fix familiar veggies in new ways. If you’ve tried them raw, steam, roast, or grill them this time.
- Cut them up into different shapes. It may take a little more time, but it can make it fun for your children to eat them.
- Smaller sizes are easier to handle. So cut, grate, slice thinly, make into matchstick shapes, or chunk. Maybe they don’t like a chunk of carrot in the salad, but if you grated the carrot it would be easily eaten. Or maybe big servings are overwhelming to the child. But only having two green beans on their plate will make it more manageable to eat.
- Grate vegetables and hide them in salads, soups, lasagnas, casseroles, etc.
- Serve a plate of veggies at the beginning of the meal as “special appetizers” with a dipping sauce or Ranch dressing. Their hungry tummies will tell them to eat.
- Set a good parental example by enjoying a wide variety of fruits and veggies yourselves.
- Have a “two-bite rule” in your home. No matter if they like it or not they have to eat two bites. They can alternate bites of the veggies with food they like but they have to eat the two bites.
- Show how their eating habits affect doing things they like—eating carrots will make your eyes strong so you can see your favorite book, or vegetables make your bones strong so you can run really fast or be a strong swimmer.
- Be patient and don’t give up putting those veggies on their plates.
- Be sure to commend them sincerely when they do eat their veggies without protesting. Children like to be praised and have their parents’ approval.
It takes awhile to learn new habits, so once you find something that works for your family stick with it. Yes, there’ll be struggles in the beginning, but visualizing your family sitting down together, enjoying a healthful dinner in peace will give you the incentive to keep going. If you have any tips we’d love to hear them!
And don’t forget you can make your life simpler by hiring someone to help prepare dinner once in a while to give yourself a break. If you live in the Silicon Valley, Simplify’s team of professionals can do that for you.
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