Battling the Anti-Veggie Wars

 I often get emails from moms concerned about getting their kiddos to eat vegetables.  I wrote this article a while back, but thought I'd re-post over here to, hopefully, answer some more questions you may have.

Going through the produce section of the grocery store with my daughter has always been a joyful experience. Being a "mostly vegetarian" family, she was introduced to whole foods as soon as she was ready for solids. Her pint-sized hands would select fresh eggplant, bok choy, and begged for a nibble of kale while riding in the shopping cart.

I remember the rolling of eyes from playgroup moms who tried, in vain, to make me feel like I was somehow mistreating my child for putting asparagus spears in a baggie for snack time. Trust me, I did not once feel shameful for providing my child with a healthy snack.

As my daughter gnawed on portabellas and parsnip "chips", I would often hear the playgroup moms complain that their kids won't eat anything green. It got me thinking... Was my child simply wired to be a professional food taster, willing to try anything?

According to one study, children's food preferences and food-intake patterns may be shaped largely by the foods parents choose to make available to children and persistence in presenting a food that initially is rejected.

So often parents think that their child couldn't possibly like spinach, so they won't offer it. Or, as I've seen many times, they offer their child spinach once and (since it gets turned down), they give up.

It can take a child up to 15 times of being offered a food before he or she will even try it!! Now it's up to the parent to be CONSISTENT about buying, cooking, and presenting the food. That means, give a teaspoon portion of the veggies you are serving to your child EVERY TIME. Gently suggest that they "try it" but don't push the issue. It will likely go untouch many times before they start pushing it around on their plates. Eventually, it will make it into their mouths.

Another study found that the 'number of foods kids like does not change much from the age of two or three to age eight' and that 'new foods are often more likely accepted at age two to four than at four to eight.' That does not mean it's too late though!

Here are some more helpful tips for Battling the Anti-veggie Wars:

• Start an an early age. Offer your toddler a variety of healthy vegetables to snack on. (Cheerios are not a vegetable.)
• Serve fresh vegetable sticks with a dip such as ranch dressing, honey-mustard, or hummus. Use cookie cutters to slice cucumber, jicama, and peppers into fun shapes.
• Have your kids help you pick out new vegetables in the grocery store and, likewise, have them help you wash and prepare them.
• Start a vegetable garden to increase the awareness and ownership of the vegetables. Children are more likely to much on cherry tomatoes straight off their own plant!
• Set by example -- kids follow your lead. Modeling good eating habits demonstrates the importance of making good nutritional choices and fosters a love of whole foods.
• Mix diced vegetables into soups, pastas, breads, omelets, etc.
• Remember serving sizes: For toddlers, a serving of vegetables may be as small as a tablespoon per year of age and a 1/2 piece of fresh fruit. Older kids should eat 1 whole fruit, 1/2 cup of cooked vegetables or 1 cup of raw vegetables to count as a serving.

"Hiding" veggies into your child's meals is one way to ensure that they are getting at least some vegetables and fiber and it has become increasing popular with parents. I recommend though, that in conjunction with hiding the veggies, that you always serve a whole form of the vegetable on their plate as well. If you are making a batch of brownies with spinach in them, don't count of them getting an adequate serving of vegetables or even bank of them liking spinach. All they're learning is that they like brownies (I mean, who doesn't?). But, by including some spinach leaves and dip on their plates, it introduces them to the whole food form of the vegetable.

The most important thing to remember is to model healthy eating habits and to be consistent about offering healthy foods. Be patient while your child's taste buds are growing and don't give up! Your child will learn life-long eating habits from you.

Check out two cookbooks for making the transition easier and discover new recipes for incorporating vegetables into everyday foods:

So, what are your thoughts? What tricks and tips to you have -- we'd love to hear them!!

NOTE:  I am not, nor do I claim, to be an expert in this category.  My background/experience comes from being a nanny, a teacher, a mother, studying nutrition and earning a Teaching Degree with an emphasis in Child Development.  This is, in no way, meant to be a guideline for how you should choose to raise your child and is, in no way, meant to be medical or developmental advice.