Enough Veggies?

[Melissa]

Do your kids like to eat fruits and vegetables? Yeah, I didn't think so. There aren't many kids in American who enjoy eating vegetables or fruits. We know they have many nutrients and need to be eaten by our children. The problem is how can we do that? Here are some suggestions to sneak them into your child's food.

Always keep fruit and vegetables open and available. Make sure they are washed and ready to eat. There may be that occasion where junior grabs a banana on the way out the door. Put some ready to serve fruit cups in the refrigerator. Make up small vegetable and dip snack packs for that quick, on the go snack.

Make homemade pizza. Give the kids plenty of healthy toppings to choose including pineapple, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms. Let them make their own pizzas. Tacos and fajitas are good foods for sneaking in diced tomatoes, salsa, etc. A stir fry dinner is another sneaky food where you can add sugar peas, spinach, carrots, and snow peas.

Let's face it, most people love sweets so use this fact as a cover for fruits and vegetables. Make sweet breads and desserts with vegetables: pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, and zucchini bread.

Homemade soups and stews are a fantastic way of combining lots of good vegetables into a good, healthy meal that kids will eat. Everything and anything that is healthy can go into the pot. You can try making a gazpacho soup using yellow peppers, carrots, cantaloupes, cucumbers, raspberries, honey, mangos, papayas, and vanilla extract.

Hide the veggies in with the meat. Grate the vegetables and serve them over the meat. You can also sneak grated veggies in meatballs, casseroles, meatloaf, shepherd's pie and lasagna. Speaking of lasagna, try one that's all vegetables. You could also try an all vegetable hamburger. You won't know if it'll work until you try it.

Add fruit to dessert. This is a great one and very easy to do. You can add just about any fruit to Jello, yogurt, or ice cream for a healthy treat. If you puree fruit, you can use it as a homemade topping over ice cream instead of chocolate or caramel syrup. Let the kids make their own fruit parfaits.

Hide the vegetables in a sauce. You can easily grate and chop zucchini, carrots and spinach into pasta and cheese sauces. If you puree mushroom before putting them into spaghetti sauce, the kids will not see them and pick them out. That's sneaky!

The best time to get your children to eat fruit is at breakfast. They're half asleep and it's easier to sneak in some good stuff instead of giving them some sugar coated cereal. Slice up a banana and put it on toast maybe with some peanut butter. Pour the cereal they like but add some dried or fresh fruit. Cook up some pancakes or waffles with fruit toppings. A fresh fruit smoothie with yogurt and fruit will go over well.

No guarantees here, but you have plenty of ideas to try. Since kids love games, make shapes out of vegetables like animals or trees and do a little pretending before they eat their creations.

What things have you tried? Did your kids notice any difference?