Many of Enriching Your Kid! readers have approached me with their contributions. So here's the first post on the new feature- Readers' Write. If you would like to contribute a post, not necessarily on food, do mail me. It could be anything related to your field of expertise that you'd like to share.
5 Fun Ways to Get Your Children to Eat Veggies
When you have a child that's a picky eater, often the most difficult thing for you to get them to eat is vegetables. This is hard on parents because they know how important veggies are for their children's nutrition. When trying to come up with kid-friendly veggie recipes, it helps to remember the advice of Mary Poppins: "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." In other words, sometimes eating veggies can be more pleasant to a child if you combine it with something they already consider tasty. To make it a little more easy and palatable next time you want your child to get some veggies, try the following fun recipes:
1.) Zucchini Bread. This delicious bread is as popular with kids as banana bread, yet contains plenty of shredded zucchini and a whole wheat flour base. Mayo Clinic provides a great healthy recipe for making this kid favorite here. Also included in the Mayo Clinic recipe is a breakdown of the nutritional value in a slice of this bread, which you don't always see on recipes.
2)"Frogs on a Log." I grew up eating this as a kid and I have to admit there's no better way to get young children to eat raw celery. All you do is cut the celery stalks into small pieces, fill the curved hollow of the celery with all-natural, low-sugar peanut butter, and line the top of the peanut butter with raisons and voila! You have Frogs on a Log. If you want a new twist on this old favorite, check out this recipe I found on Eating Well that swaps out peanut butter for cream cheese and raisons for olives.
3.) Veggies and Dip-Dip. It's a lot easier to get your kids to eat raw carrots, broccoli and cauliflower if they have something tasty to dip it in. Ranch dressing is an old favorite, but you can also use hummus.
4.) Sweet Potato Fries. I recently tried some delicious sweet potato fries at a restaurant that were made all the more tasty because they had been tossed in a little cinnamon. I thought it would be fairly easy to make at home, and I was right. Here's an awesome recipe for these kid-friendly fries that are actually baked instead of fried here at Sarah's Cucina Bella blog.
5.) Carrot-apple juice. What kid doesn't like a fruit smoothie? The key here is to add in some veggies along with their fruit in your juicer. The best pairing is tart Granny Smith apples and carrots. Check out a great recipe for carrot apple juice here on Martha Stewart's website.
Have fun making these recipes and hopefully you'll have better luck getting your kids to eat veggies!
5 Fun Ways to Get Your Children to Eat Veggies
When you have a child that's a picky eater, often the most difficult thing for you to get them to eat is vegetables. This is hard on parents because they know how important veggies are for their children's nutrition. When trying to come up with kid-friendly veggie recipes, it helps to remember the advice of Mary Poppins: "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." In other words, sometimes eating veggies can be more pleasant to a child if you combine it with something they already consider tasty. To make it a little more easy and palatable next time you want your child to get some veggies, try the following fun recipes:
1.) Zucchini Bread. This delicious bread is as popular with kids as banana bread, yet contains plenty of shredded zucchini and a whole wheat flour base. Mayo Clinic provides a great healthy recipe for making this kid favorite here. Also included in the Mayo Clinic recipe is a breakdown of the nutritional value in a slice of this bread, which you don't always see on recipes.
2)"Frogs on a Log." I grew up eating this as a kid and I have to admit there's no better way to get young children to eat raw celery. All you do is cut the celery stalks into small pieces, fill the curved hollow of the celery with all-natural, low-sugar peanut butter, and line the top of the peanut butter with raisons and voila! You have Frogs on a Log. If you want a new twist on this old favorite, check out this recipe I found on Eating Well that swaps out peanut butter for cream cheese and raisons for olives.
3.) Veggies and Dip-Dip. It's a lot easier to get your kids to eat raw carrots, broccoli and cauliflower if they have something tasty to dip it in. Ranch dressing is an old favorite, but you can also use hummus.
4.) Sweet Potato Fries. I recently tried some delicious sweet potato fries at a restaurant that were made all the more tasty because they had been tossed in a little cinnamon. I thought it would be fairly easy to make at home, and I was right. Here's an awesome recipe for these kid-friendly fries that are actually baked instead of fried here at Sarah's Cucina Bella blog.
5.) Carrot-apple juice. What kid doesn't like a fruit smoothie? The key here is to add in some veggies along with their fruit in your juicer. The best pairing is tart Granny Smith apples and carrots. Check out a great recipe for carrot apple juice here on Martha Stewart's website.
Have fun making these recipes and hopefully you'll have better luck getting your kids to eat veggies!
What a great post! Thanks so much for sharing it. I used to have the same problem with my children too. I did the same way and they're started taking their vegetables now. Hope you're having a great day.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Kristy
Great ideas... and yes I too remember the frogs on the log... except we called them ants!
ReplyDeleteI would love to participate in Readers Write... what is the procedure?!