How do I get my daughter to eat more vegetables?

All of my children are vegetarians ironically, but not all vegetarians get enough vegetables -- including my four-year-
old. She loves fruit and her favorite dish is tofu, cous cous and mushrooms. But she recoils or gives her plate back if she sees spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, etc. on her plate.

fruits are actually better for children than vegetables.... so don't be destressed about it :) you can, however, try this website: http://www.veganlunchbox.com/

That is awesome that your kids are veggies at such a young age!!!! Tell her that she cant have desert, or something that she wants unless she eats her vegetables. My little sister has an 'ears pierced chart' so if she is good for a month she gets her ears pierced, you could do something similar, with a chart or something and take them somewhere special if she eats her vegetables for dinner maybe 4 times a week.

Your kids rock!!!
xoxoxoxoooxxoo

when you make casseroles or something you can grind the vegetables up small so when they cook down she wont be able to tell what they are. this works especially well with sauces. also making fruit smoothies, you can puree a carrot or other veggies into them and the kid wont even notice. normally, kids are only grossed out by the appearance, not the smell or the taste so hiding them this way works until they are more willing to try them.

hide the fact that theres vegetables in it.

Try the "Eat a Rainbow" concept.

Also, tell her she needs to eat just one bite - do that consistently and she'll come to like the foods eventually.

My favourite way to get more veggies into meals is as a gravy - pureed veggies like carrots, peas, onions, celery, turnip, etc. make a very nice sauce thickener.

I had this problem with my daughter. I just kept trying. She finally out grew her picky appetite. She now loves all vege's and even begs for brussel sprouts at the store.

Will she eat soup?? You can sneak all kinds of things into a tomato sauce based soup.

I found that making meals where you can disguise veggies is the way to go

if you are making patties or something like a lentil bolognaise, try grating the veggies up so that she can't see them or doesn't know what they are. zucchini, carrot etc grate up really well. with broccoli, steam it first, then cut it up really finely and sneak it into the food. she doesn't need to know that she is getting these veggies. YOU need to know that she is getting the veggies :-)

I was a hugely picky eater as a kid. And my mom hated to fight with me. So whenever she made rice for me, she would cut up the carrots and other vegetables really small. Then she would mix it in with my rice, and I didn't notice the difference.

Try ranch dressing to dip it all in or try putting butter on broccoli and sprinkling parmesan cheese over it. You could try putting the brocolli into macaroni and cheese and salad is a very good way to get vegetables because you can cover it up with any dressing. Any sort of vegtables you put into pasta (i.e pasta con broccoli) is a yummy way to get your vegetables. My sister only ate broccoli for a very long time and now is trying carrots and salads for the first time and she's healthy (she's ten). Try those and if they don't work there's also omelettes and pizza and lots of other choices that include veggies and also mask them.

don't worry about the spinach, I've heard that it's like an evolutionary thing that kids don't like it, but will change when they get older

does she like salad? you can do a lot of interesting things with salad, sneak things in if you cut them up small (you could probably do that with rice dishes too). and also some veggies just taste better raw... even as an adult, I still can't stand cooked brocoli and carrots

see what you can do with spices or sauces that mask flavors, try new veggies - maybe you'll find something interesting at a farmer's market.

put veggies in things, like burritos or enchiladas, lasagna, you could get rice paper and do fresh thai-style spring rolls

She might be more receptive to the idea if you let her help you prepare and cook it....take her shopping, maybe to a thrift store, and let her choose a special pan, spoon, and pot holder-tell her they are her special items, and that you really want her to help you cook. Get her a little stool so she can stand at the counter with you. Put out some fresh veggies, and let her chop them up (soft ones, that are easy to cut with a childs knife, or spinach/kale/green leaves that she can tear up with her fingers. I started this with my daughter when she was about 3, and now, at 13, she runs rings around me in the kitchen! We love to cook together, and she has never been picky since she was always involved in the process. Its a fun way to spend time together, and will teach your little one about where her food comes from and how to prepare it with love.

Make them into nuggets and say "these are little fart nuggets, they make you fart!" :D

Maybe get her involved....ask her to look through a recipe book, pick out what she wants to make, then make it together. And don't worry too much, kids tastes buds change as they mature, I'm sure it will come (although my friends sister wont eat anything but meat...some fruit...and she is 28 now, never grew out of it...but good luck)

Depends how you cook 'em. On no account should you make it seem like something that you know is nasty but that she can have a reward if she eats it, like the person suggests above - that's a recipe for bad eating habits. You have to make it taste better.

Plain boiled spinach, broccoli etc. are, let's face it, boring. Try washing fresh spinach and placing it in a saucepan with the water still dripping off it - add a pat of butter and a scrape of freshly ground nutmeg, and cook it till it wilts. Season, drain - squeezing out the excess water - and spinach becomes more interesting. Likewise, broccoli is very good for us, but when boiled is surely the single most boring vegetable of all time, with the possible exception of the boiled potato.

However. If you blanch broccoli for just 5 minutes in boiling salted water, then let it cool down in cold water, and finally saut茅 in olive oil with a little chopped garlic and crumbled dried chilli, it becomes way more fun. You can also treat it like cauliflower and bake it in a cheese sauce, if you have a mind to.

Tomatoes I can't help you with, as I don't believe there's any point to eating raw tomatoes. Even good ones.

Get really creative with them. Eggplant Parmasions is delightful. Vegetarian lazagna is wonderful...and there are so many more. Cheese really helps veggies to taste great. Or use raw veggies and dips. Good Luck!

add garlic to spinach to try to temper that taste that kids don't like, broccoli just smells bad, but if you give it to her raw with some ranch dressing on it...maybe......tomatoes you can add to anything....but jazz it up with her favorite spice, even if it's a little splenda or sugar.......good luck....(she will like what she like when she likes it.......)

just try to make somthing with those vegetables and dont tell her what that is made off, as soon as she has eaten that than tell her after a while....

Tell her to give it a try before she makes a face or tells you that she doesn't like it. Tell her that she needs to at least taste it before you let her have desert or before she can play a favorite game/toy.

Hmm, maybe you should follow Jessica Seinfeld's book. Try it... Goodluck!

OK, I have a few options you can try...

1/ Don't make the veggies bland. Plain, steamed/boiled veggies will still have the revolting taste that she detests. Try steaming with stock in the pot instead of water, or put a dressing over the veggies on her plate. If she drowns the veggies in dressing ot tomato sauce, it's not the end of the world - as long as she's eating it all, right??

Chances are, she REALLY hates the flavour and may always hate it. When I was a kid, I couldn't stand raw tomato and I still generally can't, except in a few things like tabbouleh. So if you MAKE her eat it without trying new ways that she might like it, then she's just going to resent you.


2/ Make the veggies interesting VISUALLY, not just with taste. She will continue to assosciate that veggie with a bad flavour if it looks the same as her memory of it beign bad. Maybe you need to "play with her food" and arrange it on the plate to look like a face or a landscape with broccoli trees!


3/ If you disguise her veggies in a curry or stew or soup, DO NOT tell her what they are. You might feel bad for tricking her, but if there's no other way you can give her iron and she needs these green veggies, just do it.