5 Ways to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables and Enjoy Them
I get it, getting your kids to eat vegetables can be a real challenge! As a gardener, I want my kids to eat all those veggies I worked so hard to grow, no waste! And I want my kids to be healthy and start off young with making healthy food choices! I definitely don’t have it all figured out. Sometimes my kids are still picky. Broccoli is a real challenge in our house! But it’s gotten easier with each child and now my kids will all eat a pretty wide variety of veggies. So, as a mom of four, I wanted to share a few tips on how to get your kids to eat vegetables.
Feeding Vegetables to Babies
Starting off with lots of vegetables is an important part of developing your children’s taste buds. Some of the first foods I give babies include squash, beets, and blended greens. I use a blender every day to puree homemade baby food. As they get old enough to have more variety, I mix up everything the rest of the family is eating. For example, I’ll puree salad, meat and potatoes, or green beans with squash and chicken.
Once a little one gets old enough to realize that some foods taste better than others, they start to get picky. I’ve found the hardest age for vegetable eating is between 1 and 3 years. And that’s where the rest of these tips come into play! The more consistent you are, the faster your child will learn to eat vegetables willingly!
How to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables
- Let your kids harvest their own veggies
- Grow unique vegetables such as purple carrots
- Help your kids grow their own gardens
- Serve vegetables in ways that taste good
- Offer vegetables before meals as snacks and appetizers
As I mentioned earlier, the hardest age for getting kids to eat vegetables is usually between 1 and 3 years of age. If you are consistent about making them eat their veggies, it gets easier as they get older. My kids now rush out to the garden first thing in the spring to munch on kale of all things (I’m not even a big fan of kale!). Letting them harvest their own is one of my best tips for getting your kids to eat vegetables!
These tricks will help you get your kids to enjoy veggies!
#1 Let Your Kids Harvest Their Own Vegetables
My kids have never been real excited about kale on their plates. But first thing every spring, they all go rushing out to the garden to devour the first kale that pops up. Letting them harvest their own adds an excitement and gives them more of an interest in eating vegetables.
This year I grew most of my carrots at my mom’s house. Last year I grew them at home. Every day my kids would rush out to the garden for a crunchy treat. By the time fall came around, there wasn’t a single carrot left for our winter storage.
Teach them which plants, and which parts of the plants are safe to eat, and let them pick their own whenever they want a snack!
#2 Growing Unique Vegetables
Green peas might be boring, but purple peas? They’re the most exciting thing in the garden!
There are so many unique looking vegetables available today, and they are a really fun way to get your kids excited about eating their veggies!
Some of my kids favorites include purple snow pea from MIGardener, Black Nebula Carrot from Baker Creek, Cosmic Purple Carrot from Baker Creek, Purple Podded Pole Bean from Fedco, and Botanical Interests’ Rainbow Cherry Tomato Mix.
#3 Help Your Kids Grow Their Own Gardens
Growing their own is one of the best ways to get your kids to eat vegetables!
This year, my oldest two had their own gardens in grow bag planters. My five year old also had his own corn patch. We let them pick out what to grow in their gardens, helped them plant, and made sure they kept their gardens watered.
Having their own gardens was a fun homeschool project, a great snack station, and a source of pride for the kids. They excitedly took every guest out to the garden to show what they were growing this summer.
Over the summer they nibbled on their own kale, celery, strawberries and green onions. They cut their own sunflowers and brought them in the house to grace the kitchen. Last week, my five year old harvested his flour corn and I helped him make a batch of cornbread. This week they dug their potatoes and helped make homemade fries for lunch.
Now that we’ve had a few frosts and most of the garden has died back, they are eagerly discussing what they want to grow next year. My four year old insists she is big enough for a bigger garden this time.
You can find grow bag planters in a variety of sizes and colors. They are inexpensive and a fun way to get kids started with gardening!
To fill our kids’ grow bags, we used a combination of organic potting soil, homemade compost, and regular garden soil.
#4 Serve Vegetables in a Way That Tastes Good
My next tip is to serve vegetables in ways that taste good. You can’t expect your kids to think vegetables are delicious if you serve them in ways that are disgusting!
Our favorite is to serve raw veggies with a creamy homemade dressing (you can find our recipe here!). This makes a great dip, or salad dressing!
My kids all love squash, even plain, cold squash. But if your kids are reluctant to eat it, try dressing it up with a pat of butter and a drizzle of real maple syrup or a sprinkle of healthy coconut sugar!
For some reason my kids love pickles! They didn’t the first time they had them, but eventually they developed a taste for homemade pickles. Their favorite pickle is dilly beans, the green bean version of a cucumber pickle.
Another way to make tasty veggies is to sauté them in butter or coconut oil. Most veggies are delicious prepared this way, including green beans, snow peas, kale or beet greens and cauliflower. You can even sauté vegetables in bacon grease!
Some toppings my family likes on steamed or sautéed vegetables include shredded cheese on broccoli and homemade bacon bits on cabbage or green beans.
#5 Serve Vegetables as Snacks and Appetizers
We have rule in our house that the kids need to ask first for snacks. The exception to this is with vegetables. They are welcome to get in the fridge and help themselves to the vegetables any time. Sometimes I’ll keep a container of carrot and celery sticks or snow peas on the table. The older kids know how to get a carrot out of the vegetable drawer and can peel it themselves.
At dinner time, I noticed my kids were always hanging out in the kitchen while I was trying to cook, complaining of starvation while waiting for dinner. It occurred to me that I could serve vegetables as an appetizer, so that’s what I do most of the time now. Vegetables might not look as appetizing in the middle of a plate filled with “better stuff”. But when you are waiting for dinner and famished they look a whole lot more appetizing. My kids can go through a whole quart jar of pickles or dilly beans while they are waiting for dinner!
Other appetizer ideas include sliced raw veggies or salad with a yummy dressing.
Getting Your Kids to Eat Vegetables
Like I said, I definitely don’t have it all figured out, but I’ve come a long way from when my first child refused to eat vegetables. I hope these tips helped you!
If you have more tips to get your kids to eat vegetables, please share in the comments!
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