Getting kids to eat vegetables

[Laura P]

Austin's mom mentioned that her son isn't a veggie eater. Any ideas for increasing veggie and fruit consumption with our kids? Pile on!:D

[Italia]

I had the same problem with my son Enrico....he just refused to eat vegetables and fruit.:(

I tried in every way,but he always refused them...but...one day I cooked him some pasta with....sorry,I don't remember the word in english.....::confused: ,anyway it was pasta with the vegetable of Popeye:D ,and the next day I cooked him spaghetti with broccoli(another vegetable I don't remember the word in english!),but it worked!!!!!!Now Enrico eats vegetables every day with pasta(maccheroni)and spaghetti...

I tell this just to suggest you can mix vegetables with a kind of food that your son likes a lot!

Let me know!
Ciao and hugs from Italy;)

[Mother's Heart]

that's actually a pretty good plan isn't it? mix the veggies in. My son is not a veggie eater. Yet, he has become a salad fanatic because he gets to have the dressing (which he probably craves because he is allergic. But I learned to make dressing he can have and he still eats it.

Anyway..I've often said he likes condiments and eats the food that they are on to get them. When he had no words to communicate he would often bring me a condiment and I would cast around in my mind for what food we had that would go with it. I remember him bringing me ketchup packets and I would fix chicken or fish sticks to put it on. :) I'm still not sure if he was asking for the ketchup or the chicken...but it worked. Now he gets out whatever it is he wants and doesn't let me pick. He gets, say mustard and gets out what he wants to put it on too.

Back to the salads: This allows me to sneak vegetables he wont ordinarily eat (like tomatos, or spinach leaves) into the salad so he gets them with it.He's a chees-a-holic and loves the croutons and will eat them first...but the dressing gets the rest of the salad eaten too.

Laura: Spinach is the Popeye vegetable. :) His song in Popeye style English: " I'm strong to the finish, cuz I eats my spinach! I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!"

[peglem]

With Allie, its all in making sure she has dip! She tends to be a food purest and will not eat anything when you sneak in a change! She will finally eat bananas, if I put peanutbutter on them and sometimes she'll eat apples with peanutbutter too. Just recently, for some reason unknown to me, she has started loving pineapple...always refused it before. Would sure like to see her get some citrus.

[LIZARD]

I can get Drew to eat apples and grapes, but who knows when he'll eat veggies. I have also always been a picky eater (probably because we both have neuro issues), so I'm more patient with him, but I hope to (some day) get him to where I am: eating a small handful of fruit and veggie types in larger quantities so he gets what he needs. I'm 40 yo, and it took me 'til college to start changing! :eek: I'm still picky, too, but I think this means there's hope for him. :)


LIZARD :)

[MomOTwins]

Well, I've given up on anything other than spinach/lettuce salads and hiding veggies in the cheese pizza that Andrew loves.

Last night I made the mistake of putting the oregano on top of the mozarella on the pizza and he complained that we needed to "take the grass off the pizza", so I'm guessing that he won't be too happy about a broccoli/cheese combination or anything else with identifiable vegetables. The only other thing in the veggies group that he happily devours is tomato soup (but with toasted cheese sandwiches).

Fruit? Hmmm....fruit juice (with no added sugar), some bananas, and that is about it. Sad...but we end up making muffins to squeeze in the bananas, apples, etc. that he won't eat plain.


I read somewhere that Zoloft has been found to alter taste receptors, so maybe he has found that certain foods that he used to like no longer taste good (fruit yogurt is one that comes to mind immediately). Wish I could come up with a way to get him to try other things.

Kim

[lisa6wks]

A couple of things I have done with preschoolers who don't like vegetables, but will eat foods like macaroni and cheese and sweet fruits. You can dip the vegetable in the mac and cheese or in the fruit juice or I have taught the child to take first a bite of the veg and then a bite of the fruit. It helps if you use a "first-then" board with the child with pictures of the foods, especially if the child is non verbal.

Lisa

[LIZARD]

A couple of things I have done with preschoolers who don't like vegetables, but will eat foods like macaroni and cheese and sweet fruits. You can dip the vegetable in the mac and cheese

I was an extremely picky eater as a kid, and I'm still pickier than most adults. This is exactly how I started out with the veggies I'll eat (and there aren't many :rolleyes: :o ). If your kids can tolerate mixing textures (Drew hates it most of the time), this may help.


Good luck!

LIZARD :)

[Laura P]

Another trick we tried, back when Sierra wasn't enjoying veggies, was to make sweet potato oven fries. Easy as pie, and healthy--slice or make wedges out of either regular or sweet potatoes, or a mixture of the two. toss with or spray with oil (we use olive oil), and sprinkle with your favorite spices (we use McCormick's Montreal Steak Seasoning, but have also used plain old sea salt, coarse-ground pepper, and Old Bay seasoning, or Italian seasoning, or herbs de Provence). Bake on a shallow baking pan at 400 deg F for 20-30 minutes (depending on if thin or wedges), and flip midway through the cooking.

[Mother's Heart]

Laura! I'm going to go make some of those RIGHT NOW!

if i can find any spices that haven't been poured out this week. :rolleyes: I did hide the Old Bay when I rescued it last night. hmmm I wooooonder where I put that?

[Mother's Heart]

I FOUND it. There's some left. It says for seafood, poutry, salads, meats. Is there just one flavor Old Bay? Will this taste good?

[RathyKay]

Initially, spaghetti sauce was my best bet for getting Tom to eat veggies. However, now that we've gone gluten-free, he's stopped gagging on new foods and will eat a lot of different vegetables with no problem. Actually, I have to do the "eat a bite of this, then you can have a bite of that." But, the gagging is gone and he *will* eat the veggie to get the meat. Before gluten-free, he'd scoot away from the table and just not eat.

I'm not sure on Old Bay, but sweet potatoe fries are also good with apple pie spice or pumpkin pie spice (heavy on the cinnamon, with a little nutmeg and cloves tossed in).

[MomOTwins]

Hey, Old Bay's is GREAT! As New Englanders, we've always had some on hand to top fish, but it is also very good on anything that you want to spice up without making it "hot" spicy. My only warning, as someone with hypertension, it that it tastes pretty salty, so use it with caution if you are sensitive to saltier foods.

Yum....now I'm thinking about steaming some clams or mussels and tossing in lots of garlic and Old Bay's....hmmm.....:rolleyes:

[Isabelle]

he just loves smoothies, with almond milk, ice cream yogourts, fresh fruits, honey and 3-6-9 oil.
then once i made a perfect delicious chicken soup and he was in a 'frozen' state, no problem, i blended the soup and with a extra thick straw everything went down the hutch in a second.
reading about parasites, it says that parasites don't like cloves, so besides vanilla and cinammon i am adding cloves to his oatmeal or on his tea, or on his whipped cream or smoothies or on his sweet potatoes, or rice puddings, and so forth.

[Laura P]

It just so happens that backfin crab meat is on sale this week ($8 for 1 lb, which is cheap for crab, and I don't have to pick it out myself!), so we're doing crab cakes for dinner tomorrow. I use 1 lb crab meat, one sleeve of saltines (no salt on top), finely chopped celery, onion and garlic, zest and juice of either a lemon or lime (orange is nice too), fresh-ground pepper, Old Bay seasoning, and a couple of eggs, and we get about 6 crab cakes out of it, 4 for dinner, and Matt and I each get one for lunch the next day! I'll be serving this with broccoli slaw mix (I add cider vinegar, some sort of citrus fruit and zest, honey, red onion, garlic, red pepper, and cilantro) and whole grain rolls! Yum!

ANother thing my girls love is spanokopita--spinach and feta cheese wrapped into phyllo dough triangles. Again with the lemon zest and juice, eggs, feta (4 oz in crumbles), garlic, minced onion, thawed frozen spinach squeezed absolutely dry in a dishtowel), salt and pepper--these are wonderful warm or room temp, and are another way to get kids to eat veggies (you can put almost anything in them along with the spinach--chopped sauteed broccoli, carrots, etc.). and vary the cheese (you can even make pizza pockets using sundried tomato spread instead of pizza sauce).

[MomOTwins]

If you are nervous about working with phyllo, BJ's Club sells 9x13 dishes already made up (for about $6, I think). You'll find them in the frozen veggies section, and they cook up just like the real restaurant-style version. We love them 'cause they are low cal, full of good veggies and fiber, and you can bake them without thinking. Really yummy topped with a dollop of plain fat-free yogurt! Great leftovers for warming up at work the next day.

Another fun idea - stuffed veggies. DH and I love stuffed red peppers and the kids won't even think about eating peppers (either raw or cooked). So, I'll take veggies that they will eat (spinach, zucchini, potatoes) and try doing stuffed veggies-kid style. Hollow out the zucchini (get little ones) or potatoes (like for potato skins), fill with a mixture of veggies that they'll eat (shredded carrots, chopped greens, tomatoes), an egg, breadcrumbs or croutons, and top with cheese. If the zucchini or potatoes are a little large, pop them in the microwave for a few minutes to partially cook, let cool off, then stuff them. Put stuffed veggies in the oven to cook the filling and melt the cheese, then serve. I've snuck the typical pizza toppings into these or let the kids come up with their own fillings (a lot like letting them make tacos - a big mess, but at least they eat the finished product).