It might be a well-known fact that kids and green foods (and healthy foods in general) don’t tend to get on well, but that doesn’t mean that you should accept your child refusing to eat them. For kids, healthy foods are seen as being ‘gross’ because of their color and because of how they taste, but the fact is to be healthy kids need to be getting their five a day of fruit and vegetables.
Of course, getting a child to eat something that they don’t want to isn’t an easy task and often results in a tantrum and a lot of tears. So instead of trying to force your little ones to eat something that they don’t want to, why not be a bit more sneaky? As a mom, sometimes you have to be sneaky, especially when it comes to your child’s health. If they’re not willing to eat a certain food, then the best thing to do is get creative and come up with new ways to get their greens into them.
Hide them in sauces
A simple way to get your child to eat more vegetables is to hide them in homemade sauces. Believe it or not, you can easily hide all sorts of vegetables from carrots and peppers to tomatoes and broccoli in sauces, as long as they’re blended down, that is. There are lots of recipes online for hidden vegetable pasta sauces, pizza sauces, curry sauces, dips, lasagne, and all sorts of other dishes, so there’s plenty of choices.
Blend them into smoothies
Another easy way to hide fruits and vegetables is to blend them into smoothies. Kids love smoothies, so why not make your child a breakfast smoothie each day that’s packed full of plenty of fruits and vegetables. How about making a superfood smoothie made up of various superfoods? Superfoods are the best source of vitamins and nutrients so are a must for children’s diets. From banana and strawberry smoothies to kiwi, spinach, and raspberry, there are various flavor combinations to choose from for your child’s smoothies; it’s just a case of trying out different ones to see what they like.
Bake them into cakes
What child would suspect that there were fruits or vegetables hiding in a cake? Well, there can be, that’s for sure. From carrot or courgette cake to avocado or beetroot brownies, there are plenty of recipes that cleverly hide fruit in them. Have a browse online for healthy cake recipes that incorporate fruits and vegetables into them. Believe it or not, these healthy cakes and desserts often taste just as good as the real thing, so it’s unlikely that your little ones will guess what’s in them. Just make sure that they don’t catch you cooking them or else there will be trouble.
It can be hard to get kids to eat their vegetables, but the fact is that if you’re smart about how you go about it, you can ensure that your little ones are getting their five day.