Eat Your Vegetables

It’s a battle all parents face: getting your child to eat their vegetables. Canada’s Food Guide recommends that children get 5-10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. But how do you make sure your child is getting enough when they won’t eat them. Usually these problems arrive as your child is starting school. They are exposed to other food choices such as chips, pop, and candy and become less likely to accept vegetables. Here are some tips to get your kids to eat their veggies.

Never make vegetables a goal towards a reward such as dessert. For example, don’t tell your kids "Eat your peas, then you can have some ice cream". This will only make the child desire the ice cream more and the peas less. It is putting dessert on a pedestal and suggesting that dessert is better.

Eat vegetables with your child. Children tend to mimic their parents, so set an example.

Play games with your children like who can crunch carrots the loudest or pretend you are a giant while eating broccoli florets.

If your kids don’t like cooked vegetables, give them raw.

Cut the vegetables into interesting and fun shapes. Get your children to help you as well.

Give dip with vegetables. Kids tend to it veggies when dip is served.

Arrange shopping dates with your kids and get them to pick out the vegetables they want to eat. If you have more than one child, alternate each week on who gets to pick.

Allow your children to help in preparing the vegetables. This way they know what they will be eating and they feel a sense of accomplishment because they helped to make it.

Have a discussion during dinnertime about the vegetables. Discuss its pros and cons.

Re-introduce some of the vegetables again but prepare it in a different way such as steamed, braised, grilled, roasted, and even juiced.

Be sneaky and slip vegetables into dishes your kids like. Put them in sauces and soups. You can grate carrots or zucchini and put them in muffins.

Most importantly, don’t force your kids to eat them. If you’ve tried everything to get them to eat it then just realize they don’t have a taste for vegetables.

With any luck these tips will help make vegetable lovers out of your kids.