Vegetable Intake: Befriend the Greens

When it comes to kids and healthy eating, those two never seem to mingle together. Kids are picky about what they want to eat and when they want to. This makes it even harder to keep their intake on nutrients to a balance.

Like in the food pyramid, vegetables and fruits play a major role in your diet. You as a parent can make it more enjoyable for your child’s diet. Sources of fruits and vegetables contain important nutrients that are essential for a child’s health, growth and development.

The worrying part that gets here is how to get to make them eat it? First and foremost, learn to enjoy eating fruit and vegetables yourself, as children are best at monkey see, monkey do. So, set out the example for your child.

The Benefits Of Fruit And Vegetables

Obviously, there are many reasons to why everyone should enjoy munching on a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Both vegetables and fruits have significant nutrients that a certain fruit or vegetable may provide such as, from orange you can get Vitamin C and from potatoes you can get potassium.

They also have other benefactors that are important for any adult or child’s health that help to reduce the risk of some cancers and heart diseases.

Encourage Your Child To Eat More Fruit And Vegetables

You as a parent and being the first example, it is important to follow healthy eating habits, so that your child will eventually learn to follow you along. Adapt to the habit of offering fruits or vegetables such in various ways to your children as snacks so that they become familiar to what they are like and start admiring them on their own terms.

Remember a child’s taste buds change with their age, so never predict that they might not like a certain vegetable. Break the “eww broccoli” cliché!

Involve Your Kids

Involve your child in food preparation and planning so that they also feel closer to what they eat and become familiar to the ingredients. Let them choose what vegetable they would like to eat, be it by color even, let them have the power to choose, which will make them more willing.

Take your child fruit and veggie shopping, let them pick out what they want to eat for dinner, let them use their senses to choose. One of the best ways to get your child to love what they eat is, get them involved in what your cook. They will feel proud of what they made and will end wanting to eat it too.

Enjoy Fruit And Vegetables

It is important to enjoy what you eat. Treasure and have fun with each meal you have with your child together as much as possible. If your child enjoys eating vegetables and fruits with you then, they will likely want to take a part to join you eat them on their own or even demand, if you’re lucky enough to succeed this far.

Sometimes, children like their vegetables raw like baby carrots so let them munch on it like a snack or give a twist to the peas at dinnertime. Do not try and force them to eat something they are being resilient towards or argue with them. Let them have their own preference.

Here are a few ways to include fruits and vegetables into your child’s diet:

• Corn on the cob
• Jacket potato
• Plain homemade popcorn
• Cut-up vegetables with salsa or yoghurt dips
• Muffins or cakes made with added fruit or vegetables
• Frozen fruit or vegetable segments
• Skewers of fruit
• Stewed fruit
• Fruit crumble
• Tinned fruits in juice
• Fruit salad or a fruit platter