5 Tricks to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables
Children are notoriously picky eaters, and veggies are usually not on their list of favorites. Some kids are only interested in chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter sandwiches, and pizza.
Parents have struggled to encourage their kids to eat vegetables for years and still come up on the losing side.
But how can parents deal with this problem? There are tricks to getting kids to eat veggies, and it's not as hard as you may think.
Here are some easy but effective ways that parents can get their children to eat vegetables.
1. Make veggies fun.
If your child doesn't like carrots, you can try using a peeler to cut them into ribbon shapes and then dip the "ribbons" in some ranch dressing. Presentation is key. One way to make healthy food more appealing is by serving it in an interesting manner, such as cutting up colorful vegetables into interesting shapes.
2. Try hiding veggies in your kid’s favorite food.
You can try sneaking vegetables into your kid’s favorite dishes that contain other ingredients. For example, if you make tacos, you can grate some carrots into the cheese. Your kid won't know what hit him when he takes a bite of his taco.
3. Use dips to get kids excited about eating veggies.
Kids love dipping their food into something before taking a bite out of it. Dips can be a great way to add flavor and interest to vegetables. Try adding yogurt, hummus, or even pureed beans to plain vegetables for an extra flavor punch.
4. Make veggie smoothies.
Trying to get your child to eat vegetables in liquid form is a great way to trick him into eating them if he's a very picky eater. Making veggies into tasty smoothies that can be gulped down quickly is an excellent idea. Kids will never even know they're drinking up all that fruit and vegetable goodness.
5. Let kids help pick out the vegetables at the store.
Finally, one last way for parents to use is by letting their children help pick out the vegetables when they're grocery shopping together. Some children might be more inclined to try things if they had a say in buying them. So let them pick out their own vegetables in the produce section.
It's no secret that getting kids to eat vegetables can be difficult. But with a little bit of creativity and ingenuity, you can easily make them eat their greens.
The key is finding the strategy that works best for your children and using it consistently over time.