Culinary trickery. Top 5 ways to bamboozle your young kids into eating healthy Things.

Posted by SeacoastKidsCalendar in Awesome Tips, Family & Parenting, Health & Home, Uncategorized

When my kids were around 2-3 years old, they were happily subsisting on a strict diet of macaroni and cheese and goldfish crackers. Trying new foods was a joke. Despite all my efforts to trick them into taking just a nibble of something unusual (to them), it was consistently met with bitter disappointment. I needed help, and I needed it fast. I started an SOS email campaign and sent it to every mom I knew to forward to all their friends, and all their friends, asking for the stealthiest kid vs. food eating tricks. Man, when you get enough moms together, we really can solve all the world’s problems (as she wipes the sweat from brow).  

Here are my top 5 favorite ‘mom recommendations’ that actually work (I’ve road tested these with great success) for getting your kids to eat healthy!

1. “This is how I get Charlie to eat a healthy dessert of yogurt; I let her sprinkle a small amount of sprinkles into it. She loves it. In fact, it’s probably her most requested dessert.” –Kate, Los Angeles, mother of one

2. “Because my kids were always buzzing about the kitchen looking for snacks right before I was about to put dinner on the table, I started setting out veggie crudité and fruit slices for them to stave off hunger meltdowns. If my kids were going to fill up on snacks before dinner, at least they were healthy snacks.” –Jessica, Long Island, mother of three

3. “When I put my kid’s food on a stick (kabob), it becomes something totally new and interesting. Veggies, fruit or meat and potatoes…it all goes on a stick and it all gets eaten.”

4. “Marketing is everything when talking to kids about vegetables. Broccoli with marinara sauce to dip in is billed at ‘Shrek’s trees with swamp mud’. Asparagus served with a side of melted butter becomes ‘princess wands with magic sauce’. The fast food companies and sugar cereals do it so well—we parents have to make veggies sassy, too. – Elizabeth, Los Angeles, mother of two

5. “One word: dip. My son will eat almost anything as long he can dip it in something. Apples get honey. Cucumbers get salad dressing and carrot sticks get cottage cheese. Even adults love dip, why shouldn’t kids?”—Jennifer, Chicago, mother of two

What are your healthy eating tricks? Please share your ideas with other parents and help raise a generation of nutrition-conscious kiddos!