Gosh I am not sure. DS is only 18 months and loves his fruit and veges. I think letting them get used to the food on their own time is important - offer dont force it on them. And let them get used to how the vege really tastes. Devon's idea about growing veges is awesome as kids who have helped to grow and prepare their own veges are a lot more likely to eat and enjoy them.
I'm vegetarian and while DD is not, she rarely eats meat at home. She's not big on it at all.
I give her a tasting plate that has crudites (capsicum, carrot, beans, cucmber, tomato), cheese, chickpeas and fruit. I let her graze on it at her leisure and it usually means that she polishes off the lot!
I also do things like pizza (mushrooms, zucchini, capsicum), vegie stirfry with noodles, ravioli stuffed with vegies etc for meals.
Other snacks can be fruit and vegie skewers, corncakes with avocado and faces made out of vegies - kids often like fun things like that.
thanks guys. Some great suggestions. We do have vege garden area... except its abit of a storage area at the moment for DH's crap, however, we do intend to clean it out, and get it going again.
The idea of the sauce is good, i think i have always thought of that as 'cheating' somewhat, so have never really pushed the idea. I think however, will look into it some more.
My other big issue is my fear of Aiden choking, so, i probably tend to over cook veges, more then lightly steam, but, no wonder, if everything tastes the same, mushly and bland, cant really blame him for not eating them.
DH is a reasonable vege eater, has a few not going there type foods, but, as Aiden gets older, will have to get DH to eat abit more variety.
Aiden does like pizza, and generally, will eat whatever is on top. I guess i have abit of a pre-conceived notion that for me to be a good mother, i shouldnt need to disguise vege's so much, that he should just eat them..
I have found I only need to make the new vegie part of my children's "known" flavours by using sauce once or twice before they accept it. I know what you mean about disguising foods. I am soooo not into "hiding" vegies in other foods. My mother did that (put eggs in milkshakes for example) and when i discovered it I learnt not to trust her. So when I say I "use a sauce" it doesn't mean I drown the vegie in it. When i introduced broccoli to my toddler I just dropped one drop of soy sauce from one of those little fishes we got from our sushi hand rolls earlier that day... that's all it took... just a single drop of soy sauce. My DH can't stand over cooked vegies so that does kinda dictate things... I think it's a result of his own mother cooking them to complete stodge that turned him off them when he was at home. The only vegie I didn't really like was Brussels sprouts but DH (when we first met) served me a few that had been pan seared (slightly caramelised) and they were more palatable for me... now I can appreciate their flavour a bit better. Sometimes it just comes down to finding a different way of cooking them. Little kids also like salad vegies diced into small cubes and tossed together into a salsa. That's how we introduced them to radish. The cubes were not much more than 1 cm in size. The Pancake Parlour makes a very yummo side salad that is made this way. We went there when our DD was about 3yo and were amazed that she ate it all up even though it contained radish... we had a vegie garden at the time but until that point she refused to eat radish... after eating them the salsa way she decided she liked them afterall
Registered User
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks