How to get your children to eat their veggies!

Getting your children to eat their vegetables is always a challenge! Having three little children under the age of five I personally know this challenge and experience it on a day-to-day basis! Here are my Ten Tips to get your kids to eat more Vegetables!!

1. Hide them!!! There are a ton of awesome recipes that will let you hide vegetables into the recipe so that your children don’t even have to know they are eating the vegetables at all!! Some recipes can even use substitutions of pureed vegetables so they can’t even be recognized at all!

2. Put them in a fun dish! Serve the vegetables up in a really cute and inviting dish and your child will be more enticed to give them a try!

3. Serve them as a snack! When your child gets the mid-day munchies for a snack, if you offer only vegetables as their option they just may take you up on the offer!

4. Offer a dip! Sometimes, a little bit of peanut butter, ranch, or another dip will do just the trick to make vegetables fun and enticing!

5. Show them frequently! Be sure to have vegetables often shown around the home and offered at meals and snacks so they are used to seeing them!

6. Make a game out of them! Make up a game or a story about eating vegetables that is interactive and encourages your child to “play” along and gobble them up!

7. “Dress” them up! Cut, grate, slice, dice and arrange those vegetables and put them on display! You can make fun little bugs or animals from them as well!

8. Mom & Dad too! Don’t forget to be eating your vegetables too! When your children see you eating them they will be much more likely to try them as well.

9. Variety!! Not everyone has to love all vegetables, be sure to keep offering a variety of veggies until you find one your child loves! Then, keep introducing (and re-offering) them until their taste pallete grows accept even more different types!

10. Juice – If all else fails, you can always get a delicious drink option that has hidden vegetables in it as well!

Peas and Thank You: Simple Meatless Meals the Whole Family Will Love is a collection of recipes and stores from a mainstream family eating a not-so-mainstream diet. They offer healthy and delicious versions of foods with a Mama Pea twist that includes no meat, lots of fresh ingredients, and plenty of nutrition!! Here is a tip from Sarah, author of Peas and Thank You: “Take your kids shopping. Familiarize your kiddos with the produce section and let them choose a veggie themselves based solely on what they think looks fun, but only if they promise to eat some. You may be surprised when they load asparagus or parsnips in the cart, but knowing that they got to pick it will make them excited to have some on their plate.”

I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Peas and Thank You blogging program for a gift card worth $30.