Textures

Textures (and ways of cooking a vegetable) make a big difference in whether your child will eat it. My son will eat potato chips, hash browns, and french fries, but he won't touch mashed potatoes.  He physically gags when he puts it in his mouth. 

Before we went on a trip to Florida, I baked kale chips (recipe to come later) to take along in the car.  No, I don't try to torture my kids with kale chips.  I had a ton of kale and I needed to make it before we left.  There was no way we'd eat it all for dinner, so I made the chips.  They travel very well.  Cooked kale is sometimes a hit at the dinner table, but at times falls flat.  It is a very strong-flavored vegetable.  So I really did expect that I would be the one that ate the kale chips.  But in the middle of the road trip one of my daughters was hungry and we didn't have too many other items left in the car.  So I gave her the gallon ziplock bag filled with kale chips.  I turned back around to watch the road and forgot that she had the bag.  About 30 minutes later I looked back and my daughter had eaten more than half the bag.  She had little green kale flakes all over her.  She almost cried when I took the bag away from her. 

So the point of this is to try different ways of preparing the vegetable if your child doesn't like it one way.  Try cooking, sauteing, roasting, grilling, steaming, baking, blanching, dehydrating, pureeing (this won't go over in our house, but maybe yours) or just plain raw.

Next, let's talk about your little helper.