How can I get my children to eat more vegetables?

Let your child help prepare a meal and make sure it contains lots of colorful fruits and vegetables. Take children on a visit to a farmers market. Watch this video to learn more.

Familiarize them with new vegetable choices and encourage them to try different dishes.  Add vegetables to home-made smoothies, make vegetable stir fries, and cook baked sweet potatoes for a colorful change from white potatoes.  Your local bookstore may have the perfect recipe book that helps you incorporate more vegetables into everyday meals.

The video above had some great tips that I will elaborate on and add to.

Get Your Children Involved

Take your child to a local farmer's market where they can choose their own fruits and vegetables.

Visit a local farm and schedule a time for a tour to talk to the farmers and/or pick your own produce.

Start a garden of your own. Even a small container garden will help your kids have a sense of ownership that will encourage them to try new things. Sprouts are a great option too! They grow fast and are very high in vitamins and minerals.

Allow your child to pick out a recipe to make for dinner that includes 3 different colored vegetables. Then let them help you cook!


Be Saavy in Your Food Prep

Kids love to dip! Serve cut up vegetables with low fat Ranch salad dressing or nut butter (surprisingly, baby carrots taste great dipped in peanut butter).

"Sneak" in veggies by making purees. Jessica Seinfeld has a few books out that feature recipes with under cover vegetables. For example: Sweet potatoes and butternut squash lend themselves well to cheesy dishes and cauliflower will go undetected in many dishes.

Kick your family favorites up a healthy notch by adding shredded carrots, zucchini and squash to your pasta sauce or chili.

Kids like sweet foods. Bring out the natural sweetness in your vegetables by roasting them.

Create fun name for your different dishes. Broccoli becomes "little trees" and salads are topped with vegetables to make a smiley face with your home grown sprouts for "hair".


Be Patient

Children have more sensitive taste buds, so give them several opportunities to grow accustomed to a new food.

Don't force your child to eat these foods, it will make the experience unpleasant. Instead be satisfied with their willingness to just sample the new vegetable. 


And the most important tip of all- Eat your vegetables! Children model themselves after the adults in their lives, so your good example will be their best positive influence.

Always have fresh fruits and vegetables on hand. In particular, honor your child’s tastes by having their favorite fruits and vegetables available whenever seasonally possible. 

Each week designate a particular day; weekends are great because they’re not as rushed, to trying a new fruit or vegetable. Have your child choose the fruit or vegetable at the store, have them guess what it is, where it comes from, how it’s used - then go home and research it online to learn more about it. Look up recipes suggesting how it’s used and have them choose how they wish to prepare it. Then have them help you cook.

Kids are very curious. If you have them help you prepare a food, they’re going to want to try it. Sit them at the table while you’re cooking and assign them jobs. Have them shell peas, take the ends off the green beans, or peel their carrots. Sure you can buy these foods already prepared, but doing these tasks helps children become more intimate with their food - they’ll eat the foods while on the job. 

Start your own garden or visit local farms that allow visitors to pick their own fruit. Seeing how something’s grown and then picking it themselves is very exciting for kids and makes them want to try it. Take them home and make jam or pies or simply eat fresh and enjoy. The more kids understand about where their food comes from, the more they care about what they eat.

Studies have shown that children will eat more vegetables if they see someone who is smiling while eating their veggies. In this video, Dr. Robin Miller reveals the power of the smile in the mind of a child.

Cash in on color! A mixture of different colored vegetables is more eye catching than a portion of one vegetable. Plus, as different colored vegetables provide different nutrients you'll be providing a variety of nutrition too. Talk about 'eating a rainbow' as recommended by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Make vegetables fun! Think broccoli trees, baked potato boats and carrot stick-people or make their food look like a face on the plate

Offer raw vegetables if the texture of cooked vegetables is a turn off & adding a low calorie dip such as low fat dressing or ketchup is fine.

Involve children in choosing vegetables at the store or market & preparing them in the kitchen.

Another important point is to make sure they see the adults around them eating and enjoying vegetables.