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You already know that eating vegetables is a cornerstone of good health. Yet you find it incredibly difficult to get a vegetable past your child’s lips. You don’t want meals to be a battleground, because that’s not fun for anyone. How can you teach them that veggies are their friends?
It helps to know that it takes 15 taste attempts for the tongue to become accustomed to a new flavor. That means you might have 14 times of rejection before you get to the land of acceptance. It is a process of trying the flavor. One bite is not a complete serving but it is what gets you to that 15 times mark. If the child tries one bite 15 different times, then the tongue learns that this vegetable is good.
A lot of vegetable resistance is resisting the unknown. Your job is to help your children become familiar with vegetables. By approaching this from a few different angles, you can help your child develop valuable life skills as well as building a strong nutritional base.
Try to avoid “convenience” foods, as they often have added sugar, salt, amd/or preservatives, all of which distort the taste buds’ ability to discern flavor nuances.
Table of Contents
Eat at home with food you prepared MORE than other options
Why do you need to eat home-prepared foods more than convenience foods, take out, or restaurant foods?
It has to do with getting your kids accustomed to what real food tastes like. Already prepared foods can have high levels of sodium, sugar, and preservatives. You want your children to learn to eat tomatoes, carrots, beans, and lettuce. Their taste buds need to adjust to how different foods taste in their natural guises. Can you add salt or sugar as called for in a recipe? Of course, because you will not add nearly as much as what is in a prepared meal. I’ll just go with the assumption that you are not adding preservatives to your food. Preservatives also alter the flavor of foods.
Start young!
You want your child to start learning that different flavors are acceptable. Both formulas and breast milk are sweet, so babies naturally gravitate toward sweet flavors. This is why first foods are often peas, beans, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, and other vegetables that have natural sweetness to them. It’s why fruits are easier to get kids to accept.
It is easy to make your own baby food. When you cook vegetables for yourself, before you add any salt or pepper, reserve a portion for the baby and put it in the blender or food processor. Any extra part will freeze easily in ice cube trays.
It helps to get children engaged in the process of selecting and preparing the vegetables. It can take more time and get messy, but the payoff is your child will be knowledgeable about food and nutrition.
For toddlers and up
~Make fun presentations. Toddlers can get in “No” mode easily, so you want to deflect from that as much as possible. Sometimes food that they previously ate they now say no to. This can get challenging quickly.
~Encourage your child to be a food adventurer. Make trying new foods fun with different shapes or turning it into finger food with a dipping sauce. Ask for the child to describe the color or shape. Model trying new foods yourself.
~Kids hear what you say about them, so if you say your child is a picky eater, they will fulfill that expectation. If you consistently say how proud you are that they try new foods, you can help them develop that characteristic. You already know children do what you do, not what you say. Show them how much you love eating vegetables by eating them consistently.
~Learn how to hide finely chopped vegetables in sauces, soups, muffins, or cakes.
~Be consistent. Have at least one vegetable at every meal; two is better. Point out that the sauce on pizza or spaghetti is tomatoes. If you have spaghetti for dinner, have a side salad or another vegetable. The vegetable portions can be small, such as 3 broccoli florets or 6 green beans or 4 slices of carrot. The important part is that the vegetables are there.
~Teach your child the basic food groups and then let them select: what do you want for your protein, your carbohydrate, your vegetables, your fruit? Let them own the process.
Grow one or two vegetables
Have your kids help plant a garden. Let them select the seeds or plants and then play in the dirt. Cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, lettuce…it does not matter what they select, but follow through with their selections. Most vegetables can be grown in a container pot if you do not have garden space. Lettuce is very child-friendly, particularly the leaf lettuces which tend to be sweeter. They are great for using as a wrap.
Through the experience of growing and the fun of harvesting vegetables themselves, kids become familiar with them.
Play in the kitchen
This takes patience on your part, because you will have mess and mistakes. However, if your goal is to help your child become a functional, independent adult, then learning how to use the kitchen is a valuable life skill. Watch a cooking video together and then make the recipe together. Learning how to clean up afterwards is all part of the process.
Look for recipes that kids can make by themselves. This gives them ownership and helps them appreciate when someone cooks for them. Teach them how to make their own smoothies. Let your kids create vegetable skewers for the grill.
Let your child select vegetables at the market
Going to a farm to select vegetables can help expand everyone’s vegetable knowledge. You will probably find a wider variety of vegetables, and you should be able to ask about different vegetables. Model asking questions so that your child knows it’s okay to ask “what is this?” Let your child select one or two of the vegetables for the week. Get their agreement that they will eat it when that vegetable shows up on the dinner table. Find a “new to you” vegetable and ask if your child can help find a way to fix it.
Make shopping fun. If you visit the farm market, there may be animals to visit as well. Find the grocery store that has a kid friendly aspect. Keep your shopping trip within the time frame that your child can handle. If it’s a hungry time of day, like right before mealtime, let your child have a small snack first so that you can get through your shopping without tempers fraying.
Find the ways your child likes vegetables prepared
Roasting will sweeten all vegetables. Air fryers are another great way to prep vegetables. Raw vegetables with dip is a popular method. Leafy greens like kale, chard, or spinach have stronger flavors and can take more work to get kids to accept them. Added to soups, salads, stir fry, or smoothies in small quantities can teach the tongue to accept this flavor.
Accept that it will take time. You might be using cheese sauce, salad dressing, or barbecue sauce as ways to get the vegetables into the child for a while. If you maintain consistency, then eating vegetables will become part of the daily routine.
Mixing some apples or pears or a sweet vegetable like carrots with leafy greens or other vegetables can help add the sweetness that children love. This often works well in a stir fry.
Is it the texture?
For many food refusals, the texture is what the child does not like. It might be too hard, too soft, feel slimy, feel sticky in the mouth. See if you can get your child to identify what it is they do not like. Kale chips might work when kale in soup does not. For children with skin sensitivity issues, this can often carry over to food. Find the texture that feels comfortable.
My two rules
I did not want meals to be a battleground for my children. I implemented two rules. It is important to let the kids know about any rules consistently and without drama, and well before you sit down to a meal.
~First, take one bite. If they didn’t like it, they did not have to eat more. My challenge was to try to fix the vegetable differently the next time. Can I change the texture, seasonings, or sauce? Can it be roasted, baked, sauteed, raw? Since my goal is simply to get the child accustomed to new flavors, then one bite fits that. I found that it usually did not take 15 times for the child to start eating the whole portion.
~Second, the three-week rule. If this is a vegetable they previously consumed and now refuse to eat, then I need three weeks’ notice that they no longer want to eat it. We can use up what is in the house. I did then honor that request and would not serve that item for a long time. Sometimes I would cook the vegetable for myself and not give any to my daughter.
Not everyone agrees with these two rules, and that’s okay. Every child is different, and will approach food differently as well. You have to find what works for your family. My goals with these two rules were for the child (1) to be able to try a food without making a scene and (2) to respect the family budget and my time preparing the food.
Conclusion
By applying these simple techniques, you can create healthy eating habits for your kids that will serve them throughout their lives. Remember, patience is key when it comes to getting your kids to eat their vegetables. Offer them a variety of options, involve them in shopping, cooking, and growing, and be a role model for healthy eating. With time and persistence, your kids will learn to love their veggies and appreciate the benefits they provide.
Have fun! If you are having fun, your child will, also.
~Ruth
Additional resources
There are lots of YouTube videos and websites about recipes for kids. AllRecipes has several options such as https://www.allrecipes.com/gallery/easy-recipes-for-kids-to-make-by-themselves/.
If you find your child enjoys being in the kitchen, then finding a kids’ cookbook is a worthwhile investment. Let your child prepare the family meal. If you search “Cooking with children” on Google, a wide array of cookbooks for kids of different ages will appear, from toddlers through teens. An excellent source for used kids’ cookbooks is at your local re-sale shop or on Thriftbooks: https://www.thriftbooks.com/browse/?b.search=kids%20cookbooks#b.s=mostPopular-desc&b.p=1&b.pp=30&b.oos&b.tile,
If you are not sure how to get started with a garden, find a user-friendly course and learn the basics. Here is a course on growing vegetables in containers: https://greenthumb.samcart.com/products/vegetables-containers/.
About Ruth: I am the 6th generation of my family to farm here at Highland Orchards in Delaware. I grew up here, learning from my grandparents and parents how to plant, weed, harvest, and store fruits, vegetables, and flowers. My graduate degree is in history, so I love to research anything and everything. I have taught at all levels, including university and continuing education. I have done everything on the farm from planting to harvest to selling to social media. I love that I can share knowledge with people through books, blogs, and courses. You can find more about our farm at https://highlandorchardsfarmmarket.com/.