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DEL.ICIO.USParenting 101: Getting kids to eat veggies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THE ISSUE: THE STALEMATE
You beg them. You bribe them. You cover it with cheese. But your kids still scrunch up their noses at a piping hot plate of asparagus —- Eeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwww!
The screech echoes through the kitchen. Your darlings have become critics without even taking a bite.
Not even the ambience of the cartoon-themed place setting you spent $25 on because you thought you could get your kid to eat anything if it was served up on SpongeBob’s smiling mug seems to be making the side more appealing.
Time to consult the experts —- and to grab the aluminum foil.
THE EXPERT ADVICE
The Pediatricians/nutritionists:
Pediatricians say it may take at least 10 to 15 attempts before a toddler is willing to try a new food. And if your picky eater is nearly a tween, getting them to eat their veggies will take more than persistence. It will take some creativity.
Picky eaters dislike foods for a variety of reasons —- they are bitter, spicy, funny-looking, colored weird or are difficult to chew.
Here’s how to get your picky eater to try something different:
Change the texture. Appearance is important. Cut ridges in vegetables or grill them so they have stripes like a tiger. You can make more fun shapes with a cookie cutter. For a small child, eating veggies then becomes a safari adventure.
Create veggie art. Your child may polish off his vegetables if you make it a game that combines fun and art. Design edible faces with carrot circles for eyes, green beans for eyebrows, baby sweet corn for a nose, cabbage for hair and a broccoli tree for the mouth. Kids will have a blast creating their own faces or solving the puzzle when you put the nose where the eyes should be.
Dip it, smear it. Give your kids a choice of dips like cheese or ranch dressing to go with their vegetables. Toddlers especially like smearing. Show them how to use their fingers or a small table knife to coat the vegetable with a special treat. Serve with dinner or as a snack.
Try a new cooking style. Cook vegetables as a stir fry, which allows kids to try colorful vegetables with a variety of sauces. You also can serve them crunchy by steaming or microwaving them. Both processes will give vegetables more bite and will encourage your kids to pick them up and eat them as finger foods. Don’t forget to offer sauce.
Help your kids find their inner green thumb. Start a vegetable garden so your kids can eat the vegetables they grow or take your child to a farmers’ market so they can pick out fresh produce and learn how vegetables grow. Invite them to help you cook. If they make it, they may be more eager to try it.
The Mom:
When it comes to getting her son to eat his veggies, Suwanee mom Andre Shillow is a veteran supersleuth of the garden variety —- garden vegetable, that is.
Shillow cloaks her vegetables in masterful disguises. “I make a lot of casserole dishes,” the mother of two said.
Vegetables also can be slipped easily into pizzas, pasta sauces, soups, vats of chili and omelets. Shillow doesn’t miss the opportunity to add something green to breakfast. She mixes in spinach to the breakfast bacon and cheese omelet she makes for her family.
Her 21-month-old Dylan doesn’t seem to mind. Shillow, a payroll specialist, made sure to introduce Dylan to vegetables as early as possible. His favorite vegetable now, says Shillow, is sweet corn. Broccoli and cheese is a close second.
“He won’t eat raw vegetables because of the taste,” Shillow said of her son. “Even with salad dressing, he will [eat] it off and leave the vegetable.”
If casserole is not on the Shillows’ dinner menu, the cheese dip isn’t working, or watching his older sister Amber eat isn’t inspiring Dylan to do the same, Shillow tries the mix method. It rarely fails.
“I will either mix [Dylan’s vegetables] with rice or mashed potatoes,” she said. That way, he gets a veggie surprise with every bite of his favorite starches. “He loves to eat.”
VEGETABLE DO’S AND DON’TS
Do make servings small so the child won’t be intimidated by a mound of green mush.
Do make meal time fun. It should be a relaxing, family event with pleasant conversation and good food where kids can feel free to try new things.
Do set the example by eating your vegetables and enjoying them.
Do add vegetables early. Babies and toddlers should be exposed to a variety of foods including vegetables.
Do seek a physician’s help if your child begins to lose weight, gags or vomits certain foods or has heartburn. Certain diseases and abnormalities can present as picky eating. Let a doctor rule them out.
Don’t try to force your kids to eat things they don’t want or punish them for refusing to try something new. If you are concerned about their nutrition, consider a multivitamin or get them to eat more fruits if they don’t like vegetables. Fruits can replace them in a diet.
Don’t bribe your kid to get them to eat their vegetables. The child is sometimes happier avoiding the food they dislike rather than eating the desired one.
Don’t cook to order. If your children know that you will make their favorite foods if they refuse to eat, it is unlikely that they will try anything unfamiliar at meal time.
Sources: www.keepkidshealty.com, www.iVillage.co.uk, www.mayoclinic.com, www.uofmchildrenshospital.org, www.anred.com, www.thedietchannel.com
TRY IT AT HOME
Cookbooks
“Baking with Mommy Cookbook: Recipes for Kid-Size Ovens,” by Kristen Joyal
“The Kid-Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook,” by Leslie Hammond
“Emeril’s There’s a Chef in My Soup!” by Emeril Lagasse
Vegetable fiction for kids
“Why Should I Eat Well,” by Claire Llewellyn
“The Trouble With Cauliflower,” by Jane Sutton
“Little Pea,” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
“Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!” by Candace Fleming & G. Brian Karas
“Pizza for the Queen,” by Nancy Castaldo
“D.W. the Picky Eater,” by Marc Brown
“Eat Your Peas, Louise!” by Pegeen Snow
“I Will Never NOT EVER Eat a Tomato,” by Lauren Child
“Gregory the Terrible Eater,” by Mitchell Sharmat
“No More Vegetables,” by Nicole Rubel
“Rabbit Food,” by Suzanna Gretz
“The Lima Bean Monster,” by Dan Yaccarino
“Just Try It!” by Christianne C. Jones
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By LBP
November 21, 2006 02:36 PM | Link to this
Put ketchup on the veggie and ask them to try one bite. Then ignore. That worked for us.
By Keith Lynch
November 27, 2006 11:49 AM | Link to this
Dear Readers, my name is Keith Lynch and I would like to thank the public for your support in not only your purchase of my book but also your prayers. I would like to also wish you a happy holiday season, but for me I cannot celebrate while my family is still in so much turmoil. This part of the year is especially depressing for me and I will fast for JUSTICE while here in Chicago. Please pray for my family and me that God will bring us back together and give us justice. I will place quotes from the Bible to express what I believe happens to people who are taken advantage of by the judicial system.
Woe to you teachers of the law, you hypocrites. You say if anyone swears by his oath they are bound by their word, but when officials are exposed as lyres of their words you reward them in your judgments. You neglected the more important matters of the law-justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guilds' you strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you teachers of the law, you hypocrites! You build courts of law like white washed tombs, which look beautiful and clean on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. The Lord sits in judgment, and then you will know that there is a God! "I will carry out great vengeance on them and punish them in my wrath. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I take vengeance on them." Ezekiel 25:17Log onto www.kllundypublishingllc.com and review the injustice, which befallen my family and me at the hands of law enforcement and public officials in Dekalb County, Decatur, Georgia. Ask officials to comment on the accusations.
Keith Lynch