This article says yes. Children are better off being trained to eat what is in front of them. But I’m still sceptical. Why not do that as well as ensure better nutrition? The arguments against it made in the article (gift linked) seem weak: children can get vitamins from other sources, using sugar to hide vegetables can be more detrimental. Really, disguising vegetables might be the worst thing you can do? Please.
Jerry Seinfelds wife wrote a book on this.
I always tried to use logic with my kids, and it always seemed to work. I told them that if they tried something and didn’t like it, they did not have to eat it. Paired with that, I’d have them help me with meal preparation. So, they’d always at least try something, and having been involved in the cooking (I think) made them try it with a very open mind.
Jessica Seinfeld, an author who happens to be married to the comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
My mother’s favorite phrase: “Dinner’s ready. If you don’t like it, dinner’s over.” I was a finnicky kid and there were a lot of things I wouldn’t eat. So some of my meals were less than filling, as nothing else was in the offing. I turned out just fine.
I remember once being forced to stay at the dinner table until I had finished my vegetables (I don’t remember what vegetable it was), which were of course cold by then. My parents grew up in the Depression and food was never wasted in our house, and no kid was going to get anywhere by saying they didn’t like it and wouldn’t eat it. The benefit for me has been that I have tried a lot of interesting new-to-me foods in my life and I can count on one hand the number that I won’t eat again.
You do both, encourage them to eat it normally, and in the meantime sneak some in as well.
What is ‘sneaking’ in this context? Not telling them the dish has vegetables in it? Telling them it doesn’t when it does?
Seems like every family has this story! My brother once fell asleep at the table with broccoli in his mouth, Mom took it out and put him to bed.
There was another rule in our family: Bitch about the food, you get another serving. So we’d say things like, “Oh boy, okra! Don’t give me too much, I want to make sure you guys get enough.”
My older sisters fondly remember that I would stay at the dinner table literally until it was time for bed rather than eat something I didn’t like. My kids inherited the same streak.
Isn’t this one reason for the obesity issue? Generations of people trained to mindlessly clean their plates?
Yeah, I’m not sure about this either - a lot of dishes contain vegetables in unrecognisable form anyway. I guess ‘sneaking’ must be where they’re added to things that would not normally have them, but I can’t think of a very obvious example.
If they cleaned a plate full of vegetables, there would probably be no problem.
We didn’t have a problem with our kids with this since we both love vegetables and they saw us eating them . I can understand when a parent says “yuck, broccoli, you eat it” that there would be a problem.
That is what I was wondering. If you served me some unidentifiable mush that I could not even tell what was in it, I probably would not be so keen on eating it, either.
So this seems fine:
You can even disguise cauliflower and broccoli in pizza sauce.
If that works, lucky you. Your kids are eating veggies and everyone’s happy (it wouldn’t work for my kids, they’d sniff out the veggies in the sauce sharpish)
This on the other hand doesn’t seem worthwhile:
Does your kid like pancakes? Mix a little powdered spinach into those. Mac and cheese? That distinct orange color could come from carrots.
The idea the that vegetables will be just as good for your kid after they’ve been processed into a powder is extremely dubious to me. I’d be surprised if there is a significant difference in the overall nutritional value of pancakes or Mac and cheese that have veggie powder added versus not.
I’m thinking that it goes back to the old cartoon “eat your vitamins and you’ll get strong” nutrition advice – the idea that there are some unique micronutrients in vegetables that you can be short on even if you eat tonnes of other food so pancake + veggie powder is a lot healthier than just panake.
In contrast, most modern dietary problems are over/underconsumption of macronutrients (too much sugar/fat/carbs, not enough fiber) with vitamins along for the ride. So the difference is trivial.
I grew veggies. I insisted, umm…implored my kids to help me in the garden.
It was a matter of course if we planted, weeded, harvested and cooked it was to be eaten.
It worked to some degree.
Everyone had their likes and dislikes.
Right now we are eating a squash of some type nearly everyday. I’m tired of it, I know the grandkids are as well. The complaints haven’t started yet. Any day now.
Sneak them veggies in. I’m fine with it.
Ya want any squash or cucumbers? I have some that was just pulled of the vine this morning.
It never occurred to me to “sneak” vegetables into the food. I believe that people should know what they are eating. My personal “diet” is that i want to know what plant or animal died to give me this food. I distrust highly processed food, so I’m not going to push it on my kids.
I’m a picky eater. My husband is a picky eater. Here’s what we did to teach our kids to eat a variety of foods:
- We put a variety of foods on the table.
- Everyone was expected to take as much as they wanted. But if what they wanted was none, they were expect to taste the food. One bite was enough.
- There was one exception. Five year olds were allowed to totally avoid foods. I told them, “five year olds are picky eaters and don’t need to taste everything.” This led to an expectation that at age six they had to try new foods again. I honestly believe that five year olds (more or less) are more cautious of unfamiliar foods than either younger or older people. But this also made it a little bit of a game.
- No one was criticized for leaving food on their plate (beyond, “start with a smaller serving next time”.) I believe that children need to learn to know when they’ve eaten enough, and shouldn’t be pressured to eat more than that.
- We didn’t have a lot of snacks or other non-meal food around the house. So mostly, they were hungry at meal times.
Fwiw, it worked. We had few flights over food . Both our kids did, in fact grow up to be picky eaters in some ways, but they also eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, and are adventurous about trying new foods. Maybe we just got lucky. Every child is different.
Speaking as a pediatrician this is my bread butter broccoli and asparagus. I cannot endorse that article strongly enough!
No of course disguising veggies is not the worst thing one can do, and the article says no such thing.
It is just both unnecessary and most often counterproductive to the goals that matter, most of all helping children develop into people with lifelong healthy dietary habits and attitudes. Not quite as counterproductive as food battles but in contention. (You will lose and then they’ve learned that dangerous fact that they can win a power battle with you!)
The three rules to follow that over time work best, first two pretty easy to do, third one a bit tougher:
Offer a wide variety of healthy food choices.
Do not routinely offer other choices. Not juices, not added sugars, not ultraprocessed crud.
After that look away. Neither the food fascist or the short order cook be. Don’t cajole, don’t worry, don’t bribe. This is what there is. Eat it or don’t that is up to the kid. Guaranteed they will have adequate nutrition and have the best possible odds of eating a healthy variety in a healthy manner long term.
Okay rule four too. Model eating that healthy variety yourself. In case it need be said.
Only exception to that working is a small number or kids with significant developmental and/or psychiatric issues, and even then the approach is the least poor one possible.
Expect for “try a tiny taste of everything”, this is basically what we did.
Oh, and children were allowed to take seconds. Maybe that goes without saying. But we encouraged them not to load their plates (and waste food) by making sure they knew they could get more if they finished what they’d already taken.
I use to lie to my son about superpowers he could get from vegis, like Popeye with spinach. That worked up until he was about 3. I never gave my kids special food, I did sometimes make sure they were good and hungry when introducing a new food. My stepdaugher I got when she was 6 and she had terrible eating habits that I never was able to completely break, while my son always had good eating habits.