Eat your vegetables, dammit!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Is there noone here sad enough like me to think of a certain PowerPuff Girls episode?

My parents didn’t allow me not to eat vegetables. For sprouts, the thing I liked worst, I had to eat one for each year (when I was 8 I had to eat 8, etc.). By the time I was 12, I liked them.

One of the best things they did though was to convince me they were good for me. And right they were; the prospect of one day towering over my dad was one thing that appealed to me, and now I do.

I’m sure it’s all about pushing the right psychological buttons, but I haven’t had to push them myself yet. The one that worked for me best though, in the end, was the truth: they are healthy. And, of course, they can be cooked bad or good.

Still, I have a feeling that PowerPuff Girl episode got the spirit needed just right …

22

Father of 5, with only one partly picky child. All children enter this stage, and the best time to deal with it is right away. We had a simple rule, if you didn’t eat enough of everything, you got no desert or any treat until you did eat your vegetables. No statements, or lectures, or screaming, or shoving the damn things down their throat, or starving. (We did “the eastern european diet” for a while, and the thing to do is to make them eat them for breakfast, or skip. It doesn’t take too many days of only eating what someone gives you at lunch to start eating veggies, but it is stressful.) If they are happy never having another desert or treat during their childhood, then multivitamins will do and you’ll be ahead.

Just make a decision, and stick with it. Once they know the rules don’t change, and they get no extra attention, they just sit there at the table while a sibling or parents enjoy ice cream, and they’ll eat them.

23

I second the suggestion of planting a vegetable garden.

When I was a youngster, I wasn’t very keen on eating vegetables. Then my family planted a nice garden in the backyard, and I was in charge of weeding and maintaining the “crops.” I was so very eager to eat those first veggies that they tasted better than candy to me. Fresh stuff straight from the garden really does taste fine. I was hooked. Soon I was scarfing up frozen and canned vegetables, too. It got to the point where I preferred vegetables to dessert when I ate at the school cafeteria. I would trade my chocolate cake for a bowl of spinach. The other kids thought I was very, very weird, but they were glad to trade!

Go for the garden. You and the kids will just love it.

24

I concur that the important point is that you must set down rules, then refuse to break those rules. If you bend, then they know that they can always make you bend. The “no dessert until you’ve eaten a certain amount of vegetables” rule often works wonders. Some children may hold out for a few days or even weeks, but eventually the greed for dessert overpowers the loathing for whatever’s on the plate.

Also, there is now a huge variety of burgers made entirely or mostly from plant products, some of them with high vegetable content. Those could let you sneak veggies stealthily past their defenses. Cover them with enough ketchup and mustard and they’ll look exactly like a regular hamburger. Your local supermarket probably has veggie burgers in the frozen foods section.

25

When my mother discovered hiding overcooked vegetables under cheese, I discovered hiding vegetables in a half-finished glass of milk.

Some stuff just tastes incredibly bitter to kids. I still can’t eat brussel sprouts, and the only way I eat cauliflower is if it’s in Aloo Gobi. As a kid I once od’ed on tomatoes and didn’t touch them for 18 months.

26

Ditto on remembering that some things–especially brussels sprouts–taste terribly bitter to children. Also, their little jaws and teeth have a harder time chewing (gosh, I remember liking steak but not being able to chew it enough to swallow). FWIW, thoroughly steamed broccoli, and green beans thoroughly simmered (like, for an hour) in water with salt, pepper, dried onion, and a touch of butter were the two cooked vegetables I always ate without a fight (also, incidentally, just about any vegetable that was part of a stir-fry, covered in salty soy sauce). For a long time I would only eat the leafy part of the broccoli. I pretended I was a giraffe, eating the tree tops.

My mother and father were, apparently, always at odds about raising me. Dad would coax and force alternately. If he ever tried the Eastern European thing–and I’m sure he did–mom defused it by always letting me ask for an afternoon “snack” during Sesame Street. The snack was usually half a sandwich (ham or peanut butter), some carrot sticks, and either raisins or half a banana. It was really a whole meal, nutritious, and never any food that I was hesitant to eat.

27

Getting me to eat my veggies was always a struggle. I hated, and still do, peas, green beans, and beets. Ugh. But my parents made a simple rule, I had to eat a spoonful of everything they put on the table, no matter how much I hated it. It’s not much, but at least I got a bit of veggies in that way. I gagged down my peas and beens but it really wasn’t much to eat. It was just a spoonful, and I couldn’t leave the table until I ate them. That was the kicker. I had nights where I sat at the table for 2 hours because I refused to eat them. Still had to eat them cold, which was even worse.
The way to enforce that is not to cave. If the kids don’t have enough time to do whatever else they need to do, it’s not your fault- it’s theirs for not following the rules. A spoonful of veggies isn’t going to hurt and neither is sitting at the table for a while. They’ll get more upset that they’re missing tv time or whatever. If they manage to stay until bed time, well that’s another story. I’d serve the same veggies with dinner the next night and make them stay till they finished those and the new ones.

Oh and our spoonfuls were just a soup spoonful- really not all that much. If I was lucky I got maybe 6 peas or 4 green beans. Strategic serving and all.

28

Looks like it’s time for the old “eat it until you love it” strategy.

Arrange your meals so that they’re adequate - ie, breakfast lunch & dinner, nothing extravegant.

Then tell the kids they may eat nothing except those meals, and whatever vegetables are around (which means you’ll have to keep carrots, celery, whatever).

If I’m reading the posts right, they should weep & moan like you’re starving them to death. I don’t know if it’ll work, but they’ll either get used to eating only three meals day in which case if your kids are like mine you’ll save a huge amount of $$ in your grocery bill. Or they’ll start eating vegetables, which is what you’re after. A win-win scenario :smiley:

29

There’s nothing wrong with fruit. If they’ll eat that, then at least you have something to start with. My boy was no fan of veggies when he was young, so we focused on fruit. Apple slices, orange segments, banana and pineapple chunks, grapes – all arranged beautifully on a plate and presented for snacking during a favorite tv show. We would snack and watch tv together. It became a tradition, and since we didn’t do it everyday, it was sort of a special treat. Weeks passed.

Then came the peanut butter. Isn’t peanut butter great? Have you tried it on apple slices? Or with bananas? Ooh, yum! So then it was fruit with a little dish of peanut butter for dipping. Then came the little dish of cream cheese thinned and sweetened with orange juice – is this not the best on fruit? Eat eat eat, dip dip dip, good times watching tv. *(Actually, the tv isn’t even that important. You just need something that will promote a pleasant atmosphere. You could read the funnypages together, or be coloring, or build with Legos.) * Weeks pass.

Then celery shows up among all the fruit. Just four or five little pieces, about an inch square, peeled to remove strings and with a toothpick stuck in each one. Hey, this is great with peanut butter! Have you tried this? (Don’t check to see if they’re eating it. Don’t even mention it again. Eat it all yourself, if you have to.) Lots of fruit, dipping stuff, and a tiny bit of celery – that’s the new snack plate. And “This is my favorite tv show! I’m having the best time watching it with you!” Eventually celery will be tried. Possibly it will be enjoyed. Give it a few chances. If it’s still no go after about four attempts, then forget it. Back to fruit.

Add a few – like four – baby carrots, tiny and sweet. Also good with peanut butter. (If your kids like ranch dressing, you might add that to the snack plate to go with celery and carrots.) “Gee, there’s only four – you want one before I eat them all?” Watching tv, not watching the plate, not watching the kid or the carrots. Nonchalant, just snacking.

Anything you add to the plate – and don’t rush it, one new thing a month is plenty – is in small pieces and small amounts. And remember to keep the fruits going, too. Try new fruits, even.

If your kid starts eating more veggies, great. If not, well, at least you got all that fruit in, and have promoted healthy snacks rather than junk. You’ve shared and enjoyed food with your kids without struggling over it. And you spent a lot of quality time doing something together with your kids.

30

How about strongly flavored dishes with some vegetable in it, like stew, curry, chili, pasta sauce, chicken soup, gumbo, stir fries, fried rice, etc.?

31

If they’re eating fruit, then they’re getting vitamins and fibre. I went down to the wire with my superpicky eater when he gave up both fruit and veges. We’ve compromised on eating fruit.