getting toddler to eat veggies

[MrsBone]

I'm sure this question has been asked many times, but here goes. My 13 month old has definite tastes now when it comes to food, and I can't get him to eat green veggies. I continually give him thawed frozen peas, because it's easy, but he continues to throw them on the floor. I know it takes time for a kid to like a certain food, but I thought at this point, after trying over and over he would like them. I don't want to get to the point where the only way he gets veggies is by hiding them in casseroles, sauces, etc. I'd like to get him to eat veggies because he likes them. Any suggestions? He does eat sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn, tomatoes..you know all the sweet veggies and mushroom, onions, and canned green beans, but I want him to like green stuff too. Oh, he loves avocado too. So I give him avocado every day because it's a nice nutritious green vegetable. Should I be this concerned at this stage for his dislike of anything green? i also want to mention, he loves eggs, meat, nut and nut butters, beans and yogurt like crazy, so I am not at all concerned with his fat and protein consumption. He is still nursing which is good because he can only handle yogurt as far as dairy goes. I've even tried raw cow's milk. But he nurses 4-5 times/day, so I'm not that worried about it. Any tips? does he sounds like he's getting a balanced diet?

[applecider]

I wouldn't really worry about it. As long as he is still nursing and eating a variety of foods, he's fine. Mine is 14mos and I just give him chunks of whatever I"m eating. At this point, peas may be more fun to throw on the floow than to eat!

[WorldsBestMom]

Hey don't worry about it as for a s I am concern that kid is doing pretty well. He likes corn , avocado , sweet potato, sweet vegies, mushroom and canned green beens. I would say congrats to you. If he doesn't like the greens he will one day. As long as you introduce a variety of vegetables to him so that he will become familiar with them, thats good enough. The child will choose what he likes and what he doesn't like. If there is a certain vegetable he does not like reintroduce it to him again sometime later he might start liking it then.

[FairyRae]

Sounds like he has a lot of variety in his diet. I personally wouldn't worry about it, and just keep offering new foods whenever I was eating them. He's sooooo young still as well. (There are foods I offered 10+ times to my ds b/4 he was interested in trying them, and many of them are part of his diet now. I think just seeing them being eaten by me and dh on a regular basis got him used to the idea of trying them...)

If you really want to get more greens into him, green smoothies are a great and yummy way to do it. Take approx equal amounts of fruit and greens and put them in a blender w/ yogurt, coconut milk, water, etc.--whatever base you want. Blend until smooth and enjoy! My favorite blends in the past have been banana w/ some frozen berries plus whatever greens are available (I've used kale, collards, spinach, romaine, etc.). I typically do 1 cup greens to 1/2-1 cup fruit--just depends on what I feel like having. (I'm really used to them too, you may want to do more fruit as you ease into the drinking greens thing...)

[PreggieUBA2C]

Thirteen months and nursing is pretty young for digesting greens. If you do manage to get some into him, check his diaper because he is likely excreting them the same way they went in. Babies are not ready to digest vegetable matter and I think it's in the WAP site that children do not reliably digest vegetables until they are around five yrs old. Ours have ranged between four and five yrs old for full digestion of vegetables, although they all love veggies and ate them long before that for taste mostly because most of what went in came out in the same condition.

If you are eating lots of greens and he is nursing, then I wouldn't hide any veggies or try to make him eat them at all.

Also, if he is or you are eating pastured bovid (beef, bison, deer, etc...) meat, then you and he are eating the nutrients that made that meat, which came from grass, a green vegetable. Some vitamins don't survive that far, but in raw dairy, you'll find what's missing. A baby could be nourished with raw milk (not instead of mum's milk, of course, but preferably cultured and fed in addition to once the mum and baby are ready to add table foods) and pastured meat, including the organ meats, very well, without any green vegetables until s/he can digest them fully.

My personal experience with my own children bears this out, thankfully, because ds4 is only just beginning to want a few veggies here and there; he mostly hates them and doesn't digest them anyway, and I'm not concerned. He just stopped nursing last month.

[Koalamom]

My child who is almost 3 just started eating RAW greens. I could not get her to chew up greens that were crunchy. I had to put them in smoothies. If your child weren't breasfeeding, I would try a little harder to get greens in, but the goodness will pass through the milk. So just make sure you are eating enough greens.

Plus raw greens aren't as easily digested as cooked greens for a child. Have you tried steaming spinach or chard and covering it with butter and sea salt? My dd would eat that very young. Butter and sea salt makes everything good!

[TonyaW]

My experience has been that you if you just feed your little one what you are eating, they will eventually come around. I never made my son separate foods from what I ate and just chopped or broke up what I was eating in small pieces. Now my son loves the healthiest of foods and mostly what I serve him. Just keep trying. My son would eat something and like it, then reject it for a while and love it again.

[FairyRae]

Originally Posted by PreggieUBA2C

Babies are not ready to digest vegetable matter and I think it's in the WAP site that children do not reliably digest vegetables until they are around five yrs old.

Fascinating--I've never heard this--if you have a link I'd love to check it out!

[PreggieUBA2C]

An excerpt from the WAPF site, Foods to Tantalise Toddlers and Preschoolers: http://www.westonaprice.org/Foods-to...schoolers.html

"But my kid refuses to eat veggies!" In his article Feeding Our Children, Tom Cowan, M.D., explains "...because children have a relative paucity of the enzyme that converts beta-carotene into vitamin A, children younger than five years generally do not do well with vegetables. I tell all my parents not to worry about their children not liking vegetables, as this is normal in this stage of life. In fact, because they are slow in this enzymatic conversion, perhaps it is best left to the cow to do this conversion and for the child to eat butter and cream. This is actually probably more as nature intended it anyway." Well, well, that sure helps alleviate some dinner time battles!

If you scroll down, there is a one day sample of a healthy meal plan for toddlers and includes only a few berries, but lots of protein and fats.

The article does not discourage vegetables for littles, and I don't either (!) but they can be in much smaller quantities to none at this young age as long as you are eating them while nursing and your toddler is eating lots of fats and protein from grass-fed/pastured animals, liver, eggs (only the yolk if you don't think your baby is ready for the white, which is usually fine after 12 months, but yours is really close to that still), bone broth, fish, etc....

An important point to remember is that children need to be able to digest vitamin A from their food, and since they usually cannot from vegetables where it is abundant if grown well, then they absolutely need it from other sources like breastmilk, eggs, fish, liver, butter from grass-fed cows, etc....

Without vitamin A being properly metabolized, the body cannot assimilate other vitamins and minerals, so it is a downward spiral from there. Children living in impoversihed countries where they are malnourished suffer to death of vitamin A deficiencies (here's a WHO report if you feel like crying-- or being informed, and then crying... http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/vad/en/) and the myriad ailments that come from that, so it is no small issue! Many children in north America have vitamin A deficiencies too.

ETA: From my experience, while my dc have loved foods like steamed spinach slathered in butter and salt (who wouldn't???), when they were very young and still with our 27 mo.old, it was undigested, as evidenced by the contents of their diapers and the toilet later on. Others we know have been concerned about this too because it is so common and most people don't know that babies are not built to digest spinach except in its already digested form, from breastmilk.