Yuck! Tips to Get Kids to Eat Their Veggies
February 17, 2012
•Le Cordon Bleu
•Las Vegas
• 0 Comments
Yuck! Tips to Get Kids to Eat Their Veggies
Colleges in Nevada are filled with nutritionists, psychologists, and dieticians who struggle to learn how to get kids to eat their vegetables. Getting a bill through Congress is usually easier. It isn’t, however, an impossible task. Children can be taught to eat vegetables with a smile and even ask for seconds, if you start early and try to avoid the dreaded chicken nuggets and French fries trap.
The USDA recommends eating 3 to 5 daily serving of vegetables. So how do you convince children to eat the proper amount of vegetables every day?
Practice What You Preach
The professionals in those colleges in Nevada will tell you that the number one thing you can do is eat vegetables yourself. Children learn from watching the adults in their lives. If you fill your plate with a large variety of vegetables, your children will understand eating vegetable to be a natural and not an unusual thing.
The next thing that you can do is share them with your children. If you make vegetables available to your children, they will eventually eat them. Many children get a large variety of fruits and vegetables when eating baby food, but that selection shrinks greatly when they start eating table food. Take the foods they love from the jar and give them the real thing when they start eating real food. Master basic culinary cooking techniques that allow you to use a variety of fresh vegetables.
Don’t Take No for an Answer
Children may not take to the new vegetables right away. Don’t give up. You may have to give them repeated opportunities to learn to like the new foods. Don’t, however, make the introduction of new vegetables a traumatic experience. You should not fight your child, because they will only associate those negative feelings with the vegetables. Just be patient. Give them small amounts on a regular basis. The continued exposure to the new food will create opportunities to learn to like them.
Find a Place to Hide
Another great way to get those five daily servings is to hide those vegetables in other foods. Camouflage chopped vegetables in foods like pasta sauce, lasagna, casseroles, soup, chili, and omelets. Put veggies on top of your favorite slice of pizza. Simple is better. You don’t need to master any culinary cooking techniques.
Other Tips to Get Kids to Eat Veggies
- Offer chopped veggies with a dip, like ranch dressing (Not too much, though. The added fat isn’t worth the few veggies they’ll eat this way.)
- Serve vegetables as a stir-fry
- Let your child help prepare the meal
- Start a vegetable garden at home so your kids can eat the vegetables they grow or visit a farm or farmer's market
Most children, if given the opportunity, will easily learn to love eating their vegetables. Just give them a chance.
This article is presented by Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Las Vegas. Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Las Vegas offers culinary arts and pâtisserie and baking training programs in Las Vegas, Nevada. To learn more about the class offerings, please visit Chefs.edu/Las-Vegas for more information.
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