Dress Your Veggies For Success
Getting kids (and sometimes adults!) to eat their vegetables can be an arduous process sometimes. Because so many children are used to eating lower-nutrient, sweeter, more highly processed foods, eating something that came right out of the ground can seem like an alien idea. That is, until the adults get involved in sprucing up the veggies to make them tastier and more fun to eat. A great sports bar like Atlas Pizza & Sports Bar is a fantastic place to get your kids in on the vegetable-eating game!
Put Them on Pizza
This is by far one of the simplest ways to get your kids to start eating more vegetables. Ordering a pizza with fresh vegetables on it, or adding fresh veggies when making a pizza at home, can allow you to kill two birds with one stone by giving your child one of the their favorite kinds of food (pizza) and lacing it with raw, fresh vegetables so that they can get the nutrition they need from what they eat as well.
Get Them Sauced
No, that doesn't mean you'll need a designated driver for your celery sticks. Using various kinds of sauces and dips with vegetables is a way to enhance their flavor if taste is the biggest issue that your child has with eating them. When you order wings, get some ranch dressing or extra buffalo sauce and share your celery sticks with your child after they've been dipped in one of these sauces. They may taste the sauce more than the celery, which will keep them eating veggies longer and get them started on the path to eating vegetables on a regular basis.
Season Them
Along with sauces, some seasonings can help add extra, more pleasant flavor to vegetables such as celery or cucumber. Encourage your children to start off by eating their veggies with seasonings such as table salt, red pepper flakes, or even grated Parmesan.
Cheese Them Up
Adding cheese to just about anything makes it taste better. Use pizza cheese, nacho cheese, or even cheese from a burger to melt over vegetables such as tomatoes, broccoli, or cauliflower.
Crush Them
Oddly enough, you may find the structure of certain vegetables being the main reason some kids won't eat them. A baked potato is rejected, but a pile of mashed potatoes with gravy isn't. Try dicing or pureeing vegetables in order to make them more palatable for young mouths.
Trying any of these methods, or even combinations (mashed cauliflower with red pepper and cheese, for example) will get your child started on the path to consuming nutrient-rich vegetables regularly and without a fuss!
