Note: this post has been updated in January 2022.
Is this the look you get when you prepare a meal that has vegetables? Some of the ideas in the Video and the remainder of this article will help you get your kids to eat more vegetables and learn to love them.
Ideas to get kids to eat vegetables
Most parents know that eating vegetables and fruit as a large part of their diet is important for their children. It is true that eating vegetables and fruit regularly can only improve their lives. It improves their nutrition overall and helps to prevent most diseases including helping to prevent obesity. A whole food plant-based diet may be the answer to helping your children eat veggies and fruits.
Eating vegetables and fruit in healthy ways – not the most common source for most children of pasta sauce and ketchup! – also has been shown to improve overall school performance. Since you know how important fruit and veggies are for your children, these lists and tips will help you take the next step of incorporating them into your kids every day! Sometimes it can be hard to get kids to eat vegetables.
Secrets to Raising your Kids on a Plant Based Diet
Veggies and Fruits to Eat
Veggies and Fruits to Eat a LOT of: Green and leafy (spinach, lettuce, mixed greens, kale, chard, turnip, mustard, etc.), Colorful (peppers, tomatoes, onions, eggplant, squashes, carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages, cucumbers, avocado, berries, bananas, grapes, etc.), Unusual (leeks, fennel, okra, olives, artichokes, Bok Choy, Brussels Sprouts, Sea veggies, beets, parsnips, radishes, asparagus, kohlrabi etc.)
Veggies and Fruits for Treats
Veggies and Fruits for Treats: Call me crazy, but most fruits, for my kids, are treats at the end of meals. While berries are in season, they feast with reckless abandon, but during most of the year, veggies come first and fruits are the “dessert.” After some adjustment, kids really do learn to love the natural sweetness in fruit, even over processed sugar. The higher sugar content fruits that make great treats are apples, oranges/other citrus, melons, mango, papaya (organic, or its GMO), pears, pomegranates, peaches and the like. Dried fruits (prunes, raisins, dates, dried cranberries, etc. Are higher in sugar and are usually given as treats in the form of food bars. This might help to get your kids to eat vegetables
Veggies and Fruits to Avoid
Veggies and Fruits to Avoid: Fried ones like French fries, potato chips, onion rings and other non-foods, “veggie” chips, “fruit” roll-ups and “fruit” snacks, fruit juices (even the no-sugar-added types- they all act as pure sugar in the body and don’t compare to the nutrients in real fruit), any “fruit” or “vegetable” product that has ingredients besides fruit on the label.
Why Veggies for Your Children
Having the right information at hand will help you make the best choices for veggies for your children. Here you can see how it will help their overall digestive health and give them an edge in school. You have more influence with your children than you think. Just make it a priority and make it a fun adventure to try veggies and fruits. Take a long look and don’t get discouraged if they don’t respond well at first. Don’t make it a battle, just keep offering and keep being a good example and you will be surprised that soon your kids will eat vegetables and love them!
Digestive Health
High-fiber foods, such as fruits and vegetables, help the digestive system function properly. Constipation in kids can often be eased by eating more high-fiber prunes, apricots, plums, peas, beans, and broccoli, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. As fiber passes through the digestive system, it absorbs water and expands, which triggers regular bowel movements and relieves constipation.
Better School Performance
Children with healthy diets, including high consumption of fruits and vegetables, performed better on academic tests than children who consumed fewer fruits and vegetables in a study published in the April 2008 issue of the “Journal of School Health.” The study of 5,200 Canadian fifth graders found that the kids with healthy diets were up to 41 percent less likely to fail literacy tests than the other children. A number of factors influence the academic performance of kids, but nutrition is an important contributor to better school performance, the report noted.
Tips
To increase consumption of fruits and vegetables, shop with your kids and let them prepare vegetable and fruit dishes. A child who makes the green beans himself may be more likely to eat them, notes an article by Elizabeth Cohen, CNN senior medical correspondent. Sneak pureed vegetables into your children’s favorite foods and stock kid-level shelves in the fridge with baggies of cut-up veggies and fruits and fruit cups. via Healthy Eating | SF Gate
Make Vegetable Smoothies
Another way to get vegetables into the diet of your children is to make a vegetable or fruit smoothie. We know all kids love smoothies, and this may be an effortless way and it may just work for you! Your kids just might eat vegetables after trying this idea.
Hiding pureed carrots in casseroles… Carefully creating a big smiley face with radishes and celery… Over-enthusiastically chowing down on kale (“mmm. it’s SOO good, hunny!”)… This mama has tried every trick in the book but getting little ones to eat veggies is hard! That is until it occurred to me…
I’ve been going about it all wrong. I need to stop trying to get my kids to EAT their veggies. Instead, I need to try to get them to DRINK their veggies!
Enter veggie smoothies. Easy and fun to make, healthy, as well as super delicious.
Here are all the secrets and tips to making kid-friendly smoothies with vegetables – including super yummy recipes. – via Kids Healthy Smoothie
Time to help your children with vegetables
Check out these great sources:
The Forks Over Knives Plan, a simple plan that focuses on hearty comfort foods and does not involve portion control or worrying about obtaining single nutrients like protein and calcium.
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These are great ideas to get kids to eat healthily. Have you got any tips for getting your kids to eat their veggies and fruit?
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