5 tricks for getting kids to love veggies
Natalie Digate Muth, author of "Eat Your Vegetables and Other Mistakes Parents Make: Redefining How to Raise Healthy Eaters" (Healthy Learning; $19.95) offers tips on how to get your kids to love their greens. Credit: iStock
I'm sure you remember your parents pushing you to eat your greens and now that you're a parent, it's not always easy to get your kids to enjoy vegetables.
My 19-month-old daughter, Maggie, is embracing vegetables now but I'm not sure how long it will last. We try to sneak in spinach when preparing eggs or pasta and she'll usually eat green beans, peas and carrots with rice and chicken nuggets.
I'm always looking for creative ways to keep Maggie interested in veggies so I reached out to Natalie Digate Muth, a pediatrician, registered dietitian and author of “Eat Your Vegetables! and Other Mistakes Parents Make: Redefining How to Raise Healthy Eaters” (Healthy Learning; $19.95). Here are her top five tips on how to get kids to eat -- and enjoy -- greens.
Other ideas to make it fun, rooted in research to support them, include dressing up a baggie of veggie sticks with a child's favorite character stickers or giving veggies fun names like “power peas” and “X-ray vision carrots.”
