Eat Your Vegetables!

Since I became a parent, I’ve worried a lot about getting Wren & Mr Bump to eat healthy food.

At one stage when Wren was 3, hubby & I were so desperate for her to eat anything that we gave her bread and butter for dinner. ~ It only lasted for a couple of nights, but it gave us all some breathing space and some time to think up some new attack strategies.
I found that a really big struggle we had was vegetables. We’re supposed to be eating 5 ’serves’ per day (whatever that means), and the kids were more more likely to throw 5 serves a day.

After much experimentation, hubby & I came up with a number of methods that have worked really well and I actually have children who enjoy eating vegetables now!

1. In the Raw.

The biggest obstacle I could see was that kids usually leave what they don’t like until last, by which time cooked veges are yuck. So I cut up some raw carrot, tomato and cucumber for dinner ~ it saved time, too. That went down okay, at least it still tasted alright after half an hour!

2. Frozen peas & corn.

Not surprisingly, the kids think it’s fun to eat undefrosted vegetables. When hubby first suggested it 5 years ago, I thought the idea was plain weird. But really, that suits our children perfectly, and what difference does heating them make anyway?

3. Grow your own to pick and eat off the plant.

My mum did this with me, and I loved it. You don’t need to have a huge vege patch, or even a back yard. You can grow your own tomatoes from seed in a pot. There are heaps of things you can grow this way. Mr Bump has gotten a huge kick out of the whole tomato experience ~ and we haven’t even had fruit from then yet.

4. Cut up a selection for a platter.

I’ve found that the best way to get Wren & Mr Bump eating veges regularly is to cut them up raw and put them on a platter on the dinner table. I try to vary what’s on offer a bit and sometimes add some cheeses so we don’t all get bored.
We serve the main part of the meal (lamb chops or whatever), then I put two or three pieces of each vegetable on their plates. This must be eaten, and almost always is.
If they want more of something, they can have it after finishing what I’ve given them. Sometimes, they’ll ask if they can leave one piece of tomato (for example), and we might bargain with them ~ “you can leave the tomato if you have two pieces of cucumber”.

We’ve found that over time the kids have really begun enjoy eating veges and
actually come back for more.

Hope this has given you some new ideas to run with, in the battle for healthy eating!