One of the toughest things about parenting is making sure that your kids are eating well, which means them getting plenty of veggies into their diets. However, kids are not exactly known for loving vegetables, so sometimes you have to get creative. Here are some sneaky ways to get your kids to eat some more vegetables without having to spend forever convincing them.
Make It Fun
In order to get your child to eat more veggies, you can try to make it fun and even hide the veggies right in plain sight. If you let them play with their food, they could be more likely to actually eat it. Pretend that broccoli is actually a “tree” and let them know that carrots will help give them x-ray vision. Get as creative as you like!
Hide Them In Pancakes
You can mix in some sneaky veggies into pancake mix or muffin batter so you can get the best of both worlds. Kids love pancakes and muffins, and you can feel good serving them knowing that there’s mashed up carrot, avocado, or sweet potato right in the mix. The veggies will give the treats natural moisture and also great nutritional benefits. You can also do the same with blended up zucchini and broccoli.
Blend Them Into Sauces
You can add some extra nutritional value to pasta sauces by blending cauliflower into cream sauce, broccoli in tomato sauce, and pretty much anything else you can come up with. They will never know that they’re eating their vegetables along with their favorite spaghetti.
Blend Up Some Smoothies
Smoothies are a classic way to get more veggies into your diet, and since this trick works so well with adults, there’s no reason why you can’t use it with your kids. Blend up some veggies with yogurt and fruit, and they’ll never know that their favorite smoothie is super good for them. Make sure it takes good by adhering to the 3:1 ratio of fruits to veggies.
Fun Snack Time
Get creative with how you serve up veggies. For example, you can serve up crunchy kale chips and introduce them to sliced carrots by saying they are fun orange chips for snack time. Let them help make veggie dip so they feel involved and will get more excited about having a veggie snack.