Do you have a kid who just refuses to eat anything green? Some kids won’t eat anything yellow or red either unless it’s a candy bar or a piece of cake. It would be interesting to study just why kids have such an aversion to vegetables with no apparent logic to it. They just see green beans on their plate and no amount of encouragement will get them to taste even a small bite.
Well, mums, there is something to be said about being an adult. One of the things you know only too well is that there is always a trick or two up your sleeve and so it is with veggies. Let’s explore a few of them now.
Hide Your Veggies in Juice
Since we all know that fruit and vegetables only retain all of their vitamins and other nutrients if eaten raw, juice really is the best way to serve them to kids who won’t even try them. Simply run the vegetables through the juicer then add that juice to their favourite fruit juices to mask your blend. It works every time!
By the way, don’t buy any cocktail-type fruit juices as they have added sugar and probably corn syrup. Get only 100% juice and you’ll do fine. Grape, cranberry and cherry juices are probably best because they are darkly coloured and work best to mask the juices you are adding.
Another Way to Mask Those “Nasty” Veggies
Although this involves cooking the veggies, it’s yet another way to serve them masked within other foods. As an aside, foster parents are often frustrated when trying to get new additions to the family to try even the first vegetable. They don’t want to get overly strict or demanding, yet they know that vegetables are an essential part of their daily diet.
Not all, but some kids placed by private agencies like Orange Grove Croydon have come from situations of abuse or neglect. These are the kids you worry about most because you fear their nutrition has been lacking. Sometimes it’s as simple as taking out the food processor, chopping things like broccoli and spinach to almost the paste stage, and then adding that to meatballs as you make them. Kids always love meatballs and are used to seeing parsley in them, so a bit more green won’t phase them in the least!
Colour Me Green
Is it something about the colour green that is off-putting? Again, we aren’t child psychologists so there is no telling what it is about green veggies that bothers them. Even kids in families who eat daily salads and a plate full of greens at meal times abhor green veggies, so it must be something! Here’s where you begin introducing them to green foods that are beyond yummy – to them, anyways.
Add a little green food colouring to vanilla ice cream when making them a vanilla milkshake. Let them watch you do it so they see that it really is just a vanilla shake you’ve coloured. Do the same with mashed potatoes, homemade cakes and literally anything they already love. If you let them see you adding green, there will come a time when green ceases to repulse them. You may, at some point, be successful when placing a few green veggies on their plate at meal times. Even so, if it doesn’t work? You’ve still got the juicer, blender and mixer, so carry on mum. They’ll never know what hit them – for the good that is!
DISCLOSURE – This is a collaborative post.