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Niche Topics (Pregnancy and Kids) is all about practical parenting advice and parenting
skills to help you deal with common parenting challenges from toddlerhood to teen
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How to Make Kids Eat Veggies and Love It
By Martha Sanders
Many of my friends tell me that I'm blessed with a kid who eat his vegetables. To be very honest, it was a bit of an uphill struggle to coax my picky eater touch his greens, let alone eating the smallest spoonful of spinach. It drove me crazy; meal times were constant battlefields, the crying and screaming cycles began, it was absolute madness! However, vegetables and fruits need to be introduced as a normal part of life, and with a little patience and deception, I finally got there.
How to Get Picky Eaters Love Vegetables
1. Most kids will turn their noses at the sight of anything green. Blending vegetables in gravies or puree them in sauces will ensure your kid eat vegetables. You can add some finely chopped fruits to gelatin salads, add some pureed sweet peas to guacamole, and serve tiny vegetables, like baby carrots and baby corn, with appetizer dips.
2. Substitute lettuce leaves for tortillas in your favorite taco recipe. Prepare meat, cheese, chopped tomato and shredded lettuce as you normally would, then tuck vegetables inside a couple lettuce leaves for a healthful alternative to taco shells or tortillas. Choose red leaf, green leaf and romaine varieties of lettuce as they have more nutrients than iceberg. Iceberg has mostly water.
3. Many kids eat pasta readily, you may want try your luck with Raviolis stuffed with vegetables. Make your own pasta out of veggies with a spiral slicer or make veggie burgers for dinner.
4. Steamed or microwaved vegetables retain more flavour as well as nutrients than boiling. And, many kids including my own enjoy veggies more when steamed.
5.Don't overcook or under-
6. Sprinkle a tiny bit of brown sugar on cooked vegetables. It instantly sweetens and softens the flavor but do not destroy young teeth. Brown sugar is much healthier than cane sugar, and the extra sweetness might be just what your kids need to encourage vegetables eating. This trick works great on carrots and peas.
7. Feed your kids raw veggies as snacks while they watch television. As they're so
engrossed in watching, they'll eat whatever is fed to them. Ditch snack foods that
are high in fat, salt and sugar; offer kids fruits, or other fiber-
8. Mix vegetables in your kid's favorite meal. If he likes mac and cheese, by all means prepare it, but with broccoli or peas sneaked in. If he likes spaghetti, then add in real fresh tomatoes, mushrooms or carrots and so in in the sauce. Camouflage by chopping up and mixing veggies in pasta, stews or even omelet. Melting a bit of cheese on top of broccoli, cauliflower and many other vegetables usually does the trick for me.
9. Have fun with fondues. Sweet fruits like strawberries, cherries, bananas, apples, pineapple or dried apricots make good chocolate dippers, while carrots, celery, green pepper sticks, mushrooms, broccoli and cauliflower go great with cheese fondue.
10. Make mashed sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes. Kids gravitates towards sweet stuff and moreover, sweet potatoes contain lots of Vitamin A which is essential for healthy vision.
11. Don't send your toddler a roller coaster sugar “high”. Instead add pumpkins, zucchinis or shredded carrots to muffin mix or any bread recipe. Puree corn and stir that into corn muffin batter, or make apple cake or pumpkin cheesecake. When it's sweet, kids can hardly tell the difference!
12. Create artwork out of veggies! I make it a point to make vegetables look interesting. One trick is to use cookie cutters to cut out cute little flowers and stars from root vegetables such as carrots. Keep in mind that kids love colorful choices, not a pile of boring greens!
13. Use orange slices, a sprig of fresh herbs or a carved radish for attractive visual appeal, and kids can eat their decoration too. Now sit back and watch the magic!!
How to Encourage Kids to Eat Fish
Getting kids to love eating fish is possible, if you know some really clever tricks to make fish yummy!
How to Choose Healthy Drinks for Kids
What drinks are healthy for kids? How do common kids' drinks like fruit juices and milk measure up on the nutrition scale?
12 Fun Ways to Get Kids to Eat Vegetables
Watch your kids enjoy their veggies before your eyes, and come back for more!
Healthy Fast Food Choices for Kids
Do you know some kids meals at fast food restaurants have an eye-
Healthy yummy snacks that are easy to make and way better than store-
3 Healthy Snacks that Kids Should Eat
What healthy snacks that kids should eat ? How to make snacks interesting for your kids to enjoy?
A Day’s Sample Menu for Toddler
Learn how to plan healthy toddler menus and how to work all the food groups into your toddler's diet.
Foods that Toddler Should Not Eat
What foods are unsafe and unhealthy for toddlers? Also, learn how you can avoid potential food poisoning or choking in young kids.
5 Healthy Peanut Butter Substitutes
If PB is banned at your kid's school because of nut allergy concerns, don't miss these nutritious and tasty peanut butter alternatives.
Going crazy getting picky eaters to eat? You’ll love these tips – they always work like a charm for parents!
8 Tricks to Deal with Messy Eaters
Make feeding time enjoyable and stress-
7 Peanut Butter Sandwich Ideas
Beyond peanut butter and jelly! Flavorful, easy to prepare and great any time of the day!
8 Super Tasty Popcorn Seasoning Ideas
Making popcorn flavoring is easy. Find tasty seasoning recipes to satisfy each and everyone in your family.
10 Canned Baked Beans Ideas We Love
Creative ideas to eat baked beans with a modern twist. Kids and adults will ask for them time and again!
