How to Make Kids Eat Veggies? 5 Things To Try This Week
If you are reading this you are probably a parent or caretaker who is on the struggle bus right now doing your best to raise a healthy kid or more than one. So after you struggle with the situation long enough you start searching the interwebs for answers to, How to Make Kids Eat Veggies?
Now that I’ve got a 9-year-old and twin 4-year-olds I’ve had my fair share of veggie eating battles. So in this post, I’m going to give you my best tips for making it work from one parent to another.
1. Consider whether or not your child might have a sensory processing issue.
I’m putting this first because if your child has it– then no amount of negotiation is going to make veggie eating work for you.
So my son used to literally gag and throw up when I gave him certain foods. When I would be at play dates I used to feel like the worst parent because all the kids would gather around the Little Tikes Pic Nic table and eat their little finger veggies like perfect diet angels. My kid would pick it up, taste it, gag, and run away.
Around the age of 4, he came home from daycare one day with a sheet in his backpack that said he had had an evaluation with an Occupational Therapist and that they felt like he may have a sensory processing disorder.
Being that my sister was an OT but lived in another state, I quickly called her up asking what was happening and she said that based on the last several times she had seen him during my visits back home that she had noticed it herself because he was toe walking a lot and enjoyed falling down over and over again.
You may think they are being picky eaters but it may in fact be something hard-wired. If that might be the case for kid, check out this article: It’s Not ‘Picky Eating’: 5 Strategies for Sensory Food Sensitivities.
2. Figure out what they like and then go with it.
I always figured that my son would “outgrow” this gag/vomit situation but now that he’s 9, he hasn’t changed much. After getting him to try a lot of veggies I found that he could tolerate raw spinach and raw kale.
And so that’s what I keep handy and that’s what I put on his plate every night even if we are doing something else like broccoli, asparagus, or Brussel sprouts because I KNOW he will eat it.
My twins do not have sensory processing sensitivities and so getting them to eat a variety of options has been less of a fight/mess but I still have to work on it. There are only so many times you can sing the Daniel Tiger song, “You gotta try new things cause it might taste good.”
Once you figure out what your kid likes, just keep it handy as their regular side. Occasionally we ask him to try something new or revisit old things but it’s easier just to go with what works and feel satisfaction knowing he’s getting something healthy.
The fact is most of us didn’t aquire our own tastes for fancy veggies until we were adults. Give yourself some grace, give them some time and do your best.
3. Figure out a way to sneak what they need into what they like.
This is the classic kind of go-to thing but sometimes kids are just smarter than your sneak. The one thing that always seems to work for me is sneaking it in with food they like.
Here are some examples + links to my recipes for making it happen:
- Kid’s apple sauce/fruit pouches with veggies added to the pouch (you can buy these on the baby food aisle or cheaper on the apple sauce aisle.)
- Homemade pop cycles with veggies snuck in.
- Chocolate ice pops made with kid’s protein drinks.
- Cauliflower pizza crust.
- Smoothies
- Muffins
- Veggie chips or crackers
4. Let them help make the food.
One thing I’ve been working on now that my kids are a bit older is letting them help me make whatever we are going to eat. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t but it’s one way I can spend quality time with my kids and get them to eat something healthy because they had a hand in creating it.
5. Consider changing up the presentation.
Whether it’s how the food is arranged on the plate, what you call it or letting your kids dip it into something, changing the presentation might just do the trick.
When I was a kid my mom used to tell me that brocolli was tiny trees and for some reason I liked that idea. So I ate brocolli.
With my son I had to take the spinach, stack it and roll it up into what I called a “Spinach tornado” and my son would hold it and eat it just like that without fighting me.
My twins will only eat the spinach if we let them top the leaf with a blueberry or strawberry.
Just to be clear, you don’t need to be one of those parents who makes art out of food. I mean if you want to go for it. But little hack I found to this was Genuine Fred MRS. FOOD FACE Kids’ Ceramic Dinner Plate. If you ever had one of those Wooly Willy Magnetic face games you’ll see that this plate has the same concept except with food.
You can present decorate the face on the plate with the food so it’s more fun to eat.
But at the end of the day, my goal is to get my kid to eat some kind of nutritious veggies and in my mind, there are no right or wrong ways to do it, as long as they get that food in their bellies somehow.
So to answer your question, How to make kids eat veggies?
You don’t make them.
You do your best.
Don’t fight em’.
And it will all work out in the next 18 years… or so I hear. Plus there’s always vitamins to help supplement! My kids love this OLLY Kids Multi-Vitamin and Probiotic Gummy Supplements and every day ask me for them.
Kim Anderson is the organized chaos loving author behind the Thrifty Little Mom Blog. She helps other people who thrive in organized chaos to stress less, remember more and feel in control of their time, money, and home. Kim is the author of: Live, Save, Spend, Repeat: The Life You Want with the Money You Have. She’s been featured on Time.com, Money.com, Good Housekeeping, Women’s Day, and more!
