Should I Hide the Veggies?
By: Connie Evers, MS, RD
How do you make vegetables appealing to kids? Do you recommend “hiding” them in a dish that they do like?
Q. How do you make vegetables appealing to kids? Do you recommend “hiding” them in a dish that they do like?
A. Hiding healthy ingredients such as fruits and vegetables in kid-favorite foods is one strategy for improving your child’s nutrition. I think most moms have done this to one degree or another for generations. My own children have probably unknowingly eaten buckets of spinach. Because chopped, fresh spinach cooks down so much, it is hardly noticeable in soups, stir fried dishes, stews, and pasta sauce.
This technique generally works best if the ingredient is imperceptible in the final product. For instance, add grated carrots, finely chopped peppers, and other vegetables to marinara sauce, stir pureed white beans into cream soups or substitute applesauce for part of the liquid in apple-cinnamon muffins. Be sure to serve the whole fresh forms of fruits and veggies as well. The exposure to produce and other healthy foods as well as family role modeling are the factors that most influence a picky eater.
One trick I often use with my own children is to serve a vegetable “appetizer” around 5:00 P.M. They are hungry, perhaps a bit irritable and in need of a little something before dinner. By putting out a bowl of baby carrots, grape tomatoes, fresh pea pods, or broccoli florets, they have something to munch on, they eat their vegetables and it doesn’t dull their appetite for dinner. I often include a dip such as low fat Ranch dressing along with the veggies.