Healthy Eatting

My son is now 10 but what has worked for us for the last couple of years with brocelli, cauliflower, and zucchinni is to serve them raw. He says the zucchinni especially doesnt really have any taste when it is uncooked but when it is cooked it is nasty!!!

As with all foods, offer your child the same foods that you eat. This is so very important. Parents often "dumb down" the meal time for their toddler, then wonder why they grew up on peanut butter sandwiches and chicken nuggets. For the health of everyone in your family provide a variety of vegetables at every meal you have together. Not all taste buds are alike, and with opportunity and maturity your child will progress. Steam vegetables, don't boil. Get fresh not canned or frozen veggies. Provide a light dipping ranch for raw carrots or broccoli in a pinch. Encourage a "try it" taste for all food at the table and never get your child an alternate meal. Of course, set them up for success by planning a meal that will provide at least one thing you know your child will like. If they never try it, they won't know. Kids follow you and just like adults are effected by apperance, color, texture as well as the taste of foods. When I was a child I had no interest in this food my mother prepared. She called it "potatoes old-and-rotten". Well, that's what my young ears heard. It was potatoes au' grauten. But I had no interest in eating anything I heard as "rotten".

So:
1. Variety
2. Fresh vegetables whenever possible
3. The same as the adults
4. Be aware of tastes, textures, names and colors

You will do fine!

The best way to get your children to eat more vegetables is to put them on the table.

I am the parent. I decide what we eat. I do not make special meals for my children. They eat what I fix or go hungry. (They have never gone hungry.) Setting up the precedent that you are in charge and they are to do what you tell them is the biggest hurdle. If my children do not finish their dinner in a reasonable amount of time or they choose not to eat something, they get it for breakfast.

So, start now. You are the mom, he is the kid. You run the household, he needs to learn to live there. Make sure he sees you eat the vegetables. Tell him he eats those before he gets dessert, seconds, etc. My parents used to tell us that certain vegetables were only for the adults, because of this I still love Brussel sprouts to this day.

Don't give in. Children will not allow themselves to starve and you will be grateful for this when he has a bigger will and a bigger body.

I'm trying to 'sneak' veggies in for both my daughter and husband. He's even worse than a child because I can't bribe him to eat. Lately, a few winners have been homemade pizza (or frozen with added toppings) with zucchini, mushrooms and tomato. I sautee the zucchini w/ onion and garlic for added flavor. They both really liked the pizza and didn't even complain that there was no meat. I make sauteed zucchini couscous (soooo easy!) but any veggie can be added to couscous. I've grated yellow zucchini into my spaghetti sauce, too. It's pretty mild so it can be easily disguised. Lately weve been BBQ'ing asparagus and my daughter will eat a bite or two. Hopefully, one day she'll eat more but at least she's trying it. Baked squash or sweet potatoes are really easy and with a little brown sugar and butter they're extra good (to make them even more enticing, melted marshmallow might add extra incentive).
Good luck!

like the others said - keep offering the veggies and eat a variety of veggies yourself. Try them grilled, steamed, oven-roasted, on top of pizzas or in slices to dip in hummus or salad dressing. Take your son to your local Farmer's Market to see a variety of fresh local produce in a more "fun" setting. I personally don't like the idea of "hiding" the veggies in food because IMO fresh seasonal veggies taste awesome and have no reason to "hide", and fortunately my kids seem to agree (one of them can't pass a Farmer's Market or roadside fruit/vegetable stand without pleading for us to stop and buy something)

Just keep offering them, and enjoying them yourself. Never make an issue of it! Don't serve dessert very often....but if you do, don't use it as a prize for vegetable eating. Buy yummy, in-season vegetables and they are their own reward. The only thing I never let my kids says was "I hate (green beans or tomatoes or whatever." I made them say, "Green beans are not my favorite." And I would say, "In our family, we take care of our bodies." And they had to at least give things a try. Now they are 11 and 8, and they are healthy, tall, athletic girls-- who eat most vegetables (but don't love all of them) but who LOVE Brussles Sprouts and artichokes and salad with lemon juice on it!

Hi P., you don't tell your childs age so I will be general. When our children were young we lived overseas and they ate all their vegetables wrapped in a fresh spring roll or as a lumpia. This was so they could carry it around and eat it as they went. As the mother of 5 and now the grandmother of several I make sure that we have fresh assorted vegetables on a platter all the time and have dips they can use that make them happy to eat vegetables ( I personally hate cooked vegtables unless in soup) and then we use lots of beautiful vegetables in soup with v8 juice as our base. We give the baby frozen peas and she loves to eat them and they feel good in her mouth. The teens all eat vegetables in salads. The key here is that we found fun ways to have them eat them and they knew that everyone in the family did some will eat tomatoe and cucumber salad some won't but they all have some favorite.

My son's pediatrician recommends eating meals in courses. That is, serve veggies first and then when they're all gone, my son gets to go on to the main meal. We're still in the beginning phase of this and he's actually refused to eat his meal. It's working slowly.

I think from a previous post that I see your son is 22 months old? If that is the case, I would puree vegetables and hide them in food he likes such as in spaghetti sauce or mixed into meatloaf or homemade hamburgers. Hope that helps a bit.

If he can eat finger food, put olives on the ends of green beans. Broccoli has a lot of flavor; my son likes it. Maybe just try different ones. My son also really liked the frozen peas and carrots. (I think the small shapes of them helped.)
You can hide lots of veggies in pasta sauce.