Encouraging Fruits & Vegetables
Many parents can find it challenging to get their children eat fruits and vegetables. One of the best ways to support healthy eating habits in young children is to have them involved in food and meal preparation. You can visit my last blog post “Little Chefs” for suggestions on how to get your children cooking with you. Here are some other tips to promote healthful eating in your family:
Role model by making your own healthy food choices.
Choose a rainbow of colours from the produce section at the grocery store.
Plant a herb or vegetable garden, and involve your children in caring for it.
Read books about food. There are some great books for children that you can access through the library, and reading can help create interest in new foods.
Plan food field trips like apple/berry picking, visiting a farmer market or pumpkin patch.
Use pureed vegetables in regular recipes to pump up nutritional value. For example, pureed cauliflower can be added to macaroni and cheese. Squash or carrot is easily blended into tomato sauce, and you can look into recipes for other hidden healthy foods like avocado chocolate pudding.
Dips can make foods more appealing to picky eaters. Salad dressing, hummus, cottage cheese, salsa, yogurt and nut butter are great for dunking and dipping.
Get creative with happy face pizza toppings, cookie-cutter sandwiches and other fun food presentation to keep things interesting and exciting.
Take a relaxed approach. Try and avoid pressure and bribes as it can lead to power struggles and add stress to mealtimes. Remember that it is up to you as the parent to decide what foods you will purchase and offer to your family, but it is up to your child to decide what they will eat and how much they will eat.
One of my secret weapons as a mom of a picky eater is the smoothie. It is a really effective way of getting my children to eat fruits and vegetables, and they love it!
My older son helps gather the ingredients, measures, pours and blends.
Foods that they won’t touch such as kale, spinach, celery, avocado and even fruits that they don’t normally enjoy like pineapple and mango get transformed into deliciousness when they are blended into a smoothie.
We usually use frozen fruit so that it becomes a frozen yogurt consistency. You can spoon-feed very young children, use a fun spiral straw with older children, or my kids just drink it straight from the cup!
Even the youngest family member approves!
For more information on nutrition and encouraging healthful eating, see the links below.
Written by Ashley Colvin, Parent Support Educator & POP UP Programmer