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I have parents often ask me to suggest ways they can get their kids to eat healthier. The first question I ask them is: How do they eat themselves? The answer is telling, as many parents confess to not eating as well as they should.
As a parent, I know only too well that children will instinctively learn from you, both the good and bad. If you know a lot about food and eat a variety of natural and healthy foods, your children will pick up on those habits. If you don’t set the right example, by eating a healthy diet yourself, then you are setting the stage for your children to eat poorly. To ensure that your child develops a healthy mindset towards eating, it is up to you to lead by example. Good eating starts at home!
Here are 3 tips to help you incorporate more vegetables into your family’s diet. It is well documented that families who consume plenty of vegetables tend to have a healthier lifestyle in general. Share these healthy eating tips with your children. When preparing meals let them help pick ingredients and participate whenever possible.
1. Set the tone. If you hold your nose while you eat a broccoli stalk, do you think your kids will want to eat it? What if you make comments like, “yuck” or “How could something that tastes so bad be good for you?” Act as if you are enjoying the experience. This will obviously work better with vegetables you actually do enjoy, but remember that words and thoughts are powerful. You can learn to like new things if you try them a few times. Emphasizing the positives about vegetables, and expressing that at the dinner table, will resonate positively with you and your entire family.
2. Disguise your vegetables. This is a good one for anyone with especially picky kids at home. One idea that works well is to blend vegetables into fruit smoothies. Tossing some fresh veggies in a morning smoothie along with fruits (strawberries, oranges and blueberries work well) and whatever smoothie base you like (almond milk, yogurt, fruit juice, etc) is a great way to get vegetables in at breakfast. Spinach works especially well, as does kale, avocado, wheat grass, carrots and cucumbers. Experiment and blend up a few different combinations of fruits and vegetables until you find a concoction you really like. Let your kids pick the ingredients and help in the experiment. If they absolutely refuse to eat vegetables, you don’t have to tell the kids what’s in the “fruit” smoothie. Keep the fruit-to-vegetables ratio on the sweeter side (more fruit) at first. Gradually work in more veggies as everyone gets used to the taste.
You could also chop up vegetables and add them to omelets, cassaroles, meat loaf, etc. You could mix carrots and peas in mashed potatoes. There are many ways to add vegetables to different kinds of food. Check out this website for more great tips and recipes – www.doitdelicious.com.
3. Make it easy. Eating fresh vegetables bought that morning from the local farmer’s market is the healthiest option, but can be hard to fit in to a busy working schedule. I’m a big believer in organic frozen vegetables, which are available now in most grocery stores. They’re convenient, easy to prepare, come in many varieties and can taste pretty good. Stick with the flash-frozen kind that are just veggies and contain no added sauces. You can add your own spices and a touch of butter to make them extra yummy. Corn on the cob (who doesn’t like corn on the cob?) and baked sweet potatoes are two other easy ways to prepare vegetables. For corn, fill your pot with water, add 1/4 cup of brown sugar, drop in your corn, bring everything to a boil, let it boil for 6-8 minutes then remove from the water and let it cool enough to eat. For sweet potatoes, rub olive oil on the skin then pierce the potato once or twice with a fork. Wrap it in foil, place on an oven tray and bake in a preheated oven at 400F for 40-60 minutes. After 40 minutes, give it a poke once in while with a fork. When it feels nice and soft it’s ready. Let it cool then enjoy!
