4 Tips and Tricks to Get Kids to Eat Their Vegetables

Have you ever wondered why some kids, probably most kids, hate their vegetables? Even tiny babies, when first introduced to strained veggies, simply spit them out. It becomes a real challenge to get them to eat foods that are actually healthy for them.

Is there a switch somewhere that we aren’t aware of? Maybe we should be turning something on or off? If you are among the millions of parents who are struggling to get their kids to eat veggies of any kind, struggle no more! Here are some tips and tricks that should have your kids eating vegetables, even if they don’t know it just yet!

Juicing Works Every Time

What would you be willing to pay to watch your kids finish every last bite on their plates? Well, for the price of a good juicer, you can watch that happen every time – sort of! Simply juice one or two vegetables and add them to their favorite fruit juices, and you will probably watch them down the entire glass, no problem.

The ‘trick’ is to buy juices that will hide the color of the vegetables you are adding. So, for carrots, you would probably want orange or mango, and so forth. Green veggies are a little trickier, but there are fruit punches that are colored green, and although you don’t like the sugar content in them, they would be getting far less when you’ve added the green juiced vegetables.

Download Kids Cooking Apps

There is no guarantee this will work, but it’s worth a try. Most kids love it when mom lets them help in the kitchen. They want to frost the cookies, help make their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and even push the button on the blender when mom lets them. Your kids probably have access to kids’ games on your computer with something like a Lenovo Kids Keyboard made especially for smaller hands. Why not download a few cooking apps for kids? Some are educational games, and others are actual recipes with vegetables they can make with the help of an adult. If they’ve made it, they just might try it!

Surprise Meatballs

This has become an all-time favorite for many parents. What is a better way there to disguise vegetables than to grind them in your blender or food processor to add to the ground meat when you make homemade meatballs?

Kids are used to seeing parsley in their meatballs and will never notice a few bits of green from things like broccoli or green beans. You might get bold and add a bit of carrot from time to time but do so sparingly. They will notice colors out of the norm, so keep that in mind.

Back to the Juicer – Hidden Vegetable Ingredients

Oddly, there seems to be some kind of psychic connection between kids. Why do they all love Ramen so much? Yes, it’s an easy ‘meal’ for mom, but far from nutritious. Some parents take out the juicer and blend whatever vegetables they have on hand. Add that to the ‘soup,’ and you have just given them a serving of vegetables they’ll never see coming. The trick, again, is to use the juice sparingly, but with all those seasonings in the flavor packet, they will not notice a bit of extra color.

The best part of this tip is that you add the juice at the very end so that all the nutrients aren’t boiled out. It’s one of the healthier options you can choose.

So, there you have four different ways to get kids to eat their veggies, and most will never notice they are finally eating something healthy. Getting them to eat the ‘real thing’ at a later stage in life is another story for another day. For now, let’s all be happy they are finally eating something good for them!