Mom, I'm hungry!

How many of you hear this phrase about an hour before dinner is ready?  It's too late to give a snack, because then they won't eat their dinner.  And dinner is too far off for them to survive without a snack (in the words of my son...he'll die if he doesn't eat something right now).  Here's the perfect solution:  Put raw vegetables on the table for them to snack on. Many times I wash and cut up whatever vegetable we're having for dinner and let them snack on that.  Then if they eat so much they are full and don't eat dinner, you at least know they got their vegetable serving. 

In the beginning you may get resistance, such as "But I want a cookie, or I want..."  Stand by your guns and let them know if they want something before dinner, this is what is being served.  Also, feel free to use the other techniques in this blog such as making up a story about the vegetable or have your child help prepare.

Don’t overcook the veggies!! You’ll kill them.

I’m not talking about your kids, but about the vegetable’s taste and nutrition. I’m not a raw foodist, but I definitely see their point. The more heat applied to a vegetable, the more nutrients that are lost. Also, overcooked vegetables taste like poop – excuse the language.
If you can serve the vegetable raw, that will provide the most nutrition to your child. And even if you don’t like the vegetable raw, your kids may. See my earlier post about my son eating kale and bok choy raw.

If you are going to cook the vegetable, pay attention to it. There are so many times that I get involved with taking care of some argument among the kids or cooking the other parts of the meals, that I forget about the vegetable. I open the lid to the pan and it’s a dark green pile of mush. Shoot! Those are the nights that we have raw dinosaur leaves as our vegetable.

I find that most vegetables only take a few minutes to cook. I always tell my husband, who usually takes care of the meat dish, to give me a 10 minute warning when the meal will be ready. Most vegetables do not take more than that. For instance, I will steam kale for about 10 minutes and then do a quick sauté in sesame oil and a little soy sauce. We steam broccoli for about 5 minutes and it comes out a beautiful green with a little crunch to it. Yum!

Whatever vegetable you are cooking should still be a bright color after it cooks (bright green, orange, red, etc.). If it has started to lose its color, it has probably started to lose its nutrients, too.

The Little Helper

My son has always asked to help cook/make dinner/set the table.  I know it probably won't last, but I definitely take advantage of it now.  The one thing that is very easy to have a child help with is washing the vegetables.  The first time I asked my son to help wash the vegetables, we were having kale.  He asked if he could eat some of it.  I said sure, expecting him to take one bite and spit it out.  But he ended up eating 2 or 3 stalks.  Another time we were washing bok choy, and he ate a couple heads of that too.  Then, of course, when his sisters see him eating the raw vegetables they want some too.  On these days, my kids have their servings of vegetables before we even sit down at the table for dinner.

When your child has some hand in helping with dinner, they take pride in it.  They are much more likely to eat it, also.  I also find that when kids feel "forced" to eat their vegetables, it's a good idea to get them involved.  Bring them to the grocery store and let them pick the vegetables.  Give them choices.  If all they ever choose is corn, go with that for a while, then ask them to try one new vegetable a week.  Once you get home, ask them to help cook the vegetable (or ask how they would like it).  Giving your child some say in the food they are eating (within reason) will let them feel in control.  Then the "eat your vegetables" conversation isn't so difficult.

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.