How do you get your kids to eat healthy?

[justice'smom]

I am having a really hard time getting my kids to eat healthy. We can't do dairy so I can't put cheese on stuff to mask it, I have tryed the Deciptively Delicious book, but again everything has cheese added. My kids are 5, 3, and 6 months. Thankfully I have no problems with my 6 month old since he's still getting only bm. It's my older 2 I have the problem with. It's not like they eat junk because we just don't have it in the house. However I can't get them to really eat veggies. I'm sure this is completly normal, but are their immune systems going to be strong enough without them?

[Felicitymom]

I know that my DD goes through really picky phases and it seems ate more variety when she was 2.... I make soup and add what I can to it. Like boil a lot of veggies in the chicken broth (with the bones and meat) and then strain it all out so there is just broth. I use this whenever I can.... to make rice or pour it over noodles. Sometimes I just give it to her to sip. Also, we have a garden and that makes eating veggies very easy. She just eats right out of the garden... dark leafy greens, carrots, herbs, broccoli, cucumbers. etc... I give her different veggies in different ways.... she loves raw carrots, cooked cabbage, corn. Sometimes she eats corn frozen... I guess I would just mix it up and do the best you can. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Ithink kids eat more as they get older. Maybe give them vitamins. No diary would be hard. I know my DD gets a lot of her protien from diary.

[Klynne]

My strategy is to keep the portions small and keep offering every day, even if they don't eat. (I throw uneaten/licked veggies into stock or soups so the waste is minimal). Green smoothies are huge for us as well as juicing. The kids get a lot of greens/veggies in their fresh apple juice or blended with some coconut kefir and banana and almonds. (Carrot and beet work well in smoothies too.).

If I make pasta for lunch I cut spinach up into tiny tiny pieces and throw in some corn (or I cut the flowers off the broccoli heads, or I use peas) and a little butter...

I watch a girl who *was* a very picky eater, for awhile she would only eat pba's so I sprinkled green vibrance on the bread before I slathered the almond butter on. She didn't even know she was eating a ton of greens/weeds/veggies I kept offering the things my kids were eating and now she eats the same as them.

Seems to me you're on the right path.

[StillForest]

Lots of good ideas. I also use a "bury the vegetables" approach. I make fried rice (w/brown rice) and add in chopped veggies such as broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, edamame, cabbage, squash... She happily eats many veggies that she'd never touch otherwise. I also make sauces out of nut butters (usually almond, cashew or peanut) and use this over chopped veggies and pasta or rice. I add finely chopped broccoli and spinach to my tomato sauce whenever I make any pasta dish. We've been doing this for years and DD, now 8, is enjoying more and more vegetable dishes. We also model love of veggies--I eat a large salad almost every day. Involvement in cooking has also helped her to become more open to trying and eating more veggies.

[kjbrown92]

My kids like to dip. So fruits can get dipped in coconut milk (or other) yogurt. Steamed veggies get dipped in tomato sauce or gravy (or ketchup for those of you who can have it). I never put anything on my veggies, like butter, so they got used to them just plain. My DH is the only one who puts butter on his veggies. A lot of times I'll put out a platter of raw veggies: celery, cucumber, carrots, peppers, and tell them they have to eat their age in pieces (if my 9yo wants 9 pieces of celery, that's fine, if he wants 3 pieces of celery, 5 pieces of cucumber, and a pepper, that's fine too). I do it with fruit plates too. We do mixed roasted veggies. Sweet potato fries. My DD2 has been dipping asparagus, green beans, and cooked carrots in chicken gravy since she was about a year old. We also do smoothies (coconut milk, frozen berries, banana, and when they're not looking, add a cup of spinach). If you're making stew, instead of water, put in carrot juice, or V8 juice type drinks. My DS loves zucchini fritters dipped in tomato sauce. Maybe my kids are just weird though.

[sofiabugmom]

DD (7) eats fruit and veggies with no problem (and no sauces or dips, either). My issue is getting her to eat protein!

She'll eat fishsticks, and the occasional Chicken McNuggets (actually she'd eat those all the time but I only buy them for her occasionally). She also loves peanut butter sandwiches. My sneaky way for getting some additional protein is a pancake recipe I have that calls for lots of eggs and blended cottage cheese.

It's also a struggle to get her to try anything new, especially anything that is a combination of ingredients (like a soup or a casserole, no matter what's in it). *sigh*.

[lil_earthmomma]

Smoothies with baby spinach are a favorite around here. Can`t taste the spinach, and if you add frozen mixed berries or strawberries, can`t see the green either!

My boys both love to dip broccoli in gravy, so we have that often.

I puree veggies into creamy soups and stews, so they go undetected. Tomato sauce is another good place to do this.

[staceychev]

Have you tried getting them involved in the process? Can they pick out a veggie at the store, and then help you prepare it? My DD isn't anti-veggie, but there are other things she's not so keen on (like stir-fry), and I find that if she helped make it, she's more likely to eat it.

ETA: I see your kids are 5 and 3. Don't let anyone tell you that a 3YO can't help in the kitchen. Mine has been "helping" for at least a year, if not longer. I found that "mushroom slicing" was a really important task in my kitchen, because mushrooms can be cut with knives from kids' flatware sets. Many a night, DD prepared a whole pile of mushrooms even though I had no intention of using them!

[elanorh]

If you haven't read Child of Mine yet, I recommend it highly! The author is an RD, and her book is well regarded and backed by scientific studies, in terms of how to approach feeding kids.

Her mantra is pretty much: Parents pick what to serve and how to serve it; kids pick what and how much to eat if any of it.

It's difficult to wrap our minds around because it is very different from the way many of us were parented ("No dessert until you clean your plate!") -- but the research shows that kids who are parented this way nutritionally will eat healthier and more varied diets as adults. And it also shows that given control of what they eat, over time, kids get adequate nutrition from the foods they do select (maybe one day it's heavy in carrots/Vitamin A, but over the course of a day/week it works out). Her other specialty is disordered eating, and she argues that when we try to control or micromanage what kids eat, we create disordered eating habits and the child doesn't learn to follow his/her own satiety cues.

So, she's not saying serve candy at every meal. She's saying, bring healthy food into your home and offer it to your children. They will choose what to eat from that. Relax, and it will work. She's worked with kids who severely restricted their food intakes and describes that - and how it can be resolved with patience (and sometimes the help of an expert).

That said --
dd1 likes vegetables. When she was at her four year doctor's appointment, she told her Ped that her favorite vegetable was eggplant (!).

dd2 likes potatoes and carrots and canned tomatoes - and beets. She resists other vegetables, although she will occasionally eat winter squash.

We are not helped by the fact that she can't have legumes due to an allergy. And it's only within the past five months that she's been able to have dairy (allergy outgrown). I think it's easiest when kids aren't having to have foods restricted while they're itty-bitty; by the time she could try some foods, she was well into the "not for me" mindset.

What we do, is OFFER OFFER OFFER. We eat the vegetables and talk about how good they are, and ask her if she wants to try them, but when she refuses, we just tell her, "Well, one day you'll try them and find how good they are." And then we eat them. At this point, she will occasionally want the vegetables put on her plate, but won't eat them once they're there. It's frustrating. But I am confident that she's going to come to like them more as she gets older. We also have her help in the garden and where appropriate while cooking (she washes the mushrooms or hands me the vegetable to wash or peel or etc.).

I know it seems counterintuitive. Look for the book and read it and see what you think. It's still sometimes a struggle for me to implement, but I'm working on it.