Eat your vegetables...

In our Start by Eating Right classes, our curriculum designed for parents of young children, there is one common question that keeps coming up again and again… How do I get my kids to try new vegetables? Of course there is no one right answer to this question, but it turns out that one of the best resources are the ideas that come from parents in the class sharing their own experiences of what works for them and what doesn’t. Here is a list of just some of the ideas that we came up in some of my classes about getting kids to try new foods:

• When introducing a new food, encourage kids to take a “no-thank-you bite”. All they have to do is have one taste of a food that they say they don’t like. That way they will be able to prove for sure that they really don’t like it…. or maybe they will even be surprised to find that they actually do like it after all.

• Keep encouraging kids to try foods even if they have already tried them before. Tastes change over time, so they may find that they actually like a food that they previously did not like.

• Kids are less likely to want to taste foods that are unfamiliar. So if they don’t try it the first time, don’t give up. Keep offering a new food and eventually your child might be willing to give it a try.

• If your kids like to eat meat but don’t like to eat vegetables, then try cooking vegetables with a little bit of meat. This way the vegetables will pick up flavor from the meat, and it will be harder for them to eat just meat with no vegetables.

• Be a good role model. If you are willing to try new foods and eat more vegetables yourself, chances are your children will be willing to follow your example.

• Allow kids to help you pick out vegetables in the store, or have them help you in the kitchen. If they are more involved in the process, they might be more willing to eat foods that they helped pick out or prepare.