Kids will be kids. Most of them won’t favour eating vegetables because they’re simply “yucky”.

If your child is one of them, it’s your job to educate them on the importance of this food group, include it in their diet and somehow get them to like it.

For some parents, that may seem impossible, but not to worry. One way to get them to eat it is to not let them know that they are. Get it?

Yes, you can do this by hiding the vegetable ingredient in the food that they consider yummy. Hopefully they won’t know what hit them!

At the end of the day, however, promoting the vegetables in their original form is still key. After all, vegetables not only contain vitamins and minerals, but also fiber which can are low in calories and can combat obesity.

Credit: BEBEZCLUB

Here’s another way of increasing vegetable consumption, according to a recent report published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Penn State’s Center for Childhood Obesity Research associate director Jennifer S. Savage and her colleagues had worked with 34 children between the ages of 3 and 5 to determine their likes and dislikes.

The children were given a taste of a variety of vegetables – carrots, celery, cucumbers, green beans, red peppers and yellow squash.

Then they were shown three cartoon pictures that mean “yummy,” “just okay,” and “yucky.” The children were asked to pick which of the three picture they felt best represented each vegetable, according to their taste.

It’s not yet over! Then the children were served the vegetables once again, but this time with five dipping sauce – a plain dip, as well as pizza, ranch, herb and garlic.

Credit: Super Healthy Kids

Their likes and dislikes were reassessed again and the results suggest that these dips will help increase the children’s interest and likelihood in eating vegetables if served together.

For instance, 31% of the kids had labelled a vegetable on its own to be “yummy,” but the percentage increased to 64% when it was paired with a flavoured dip.

Another example is that 18% of the kids had refused to eat some of the vegetables on their own, but when they are paired with some dip, the number decreased to only 6%.

Who would’ve thought?

And while your child may not be a huge fan of veggies after this, there’s no harm in trying. Plus, he or she will at least consume some along the way.

Just remember to keep trying new ways to introduce healthy food while maintaining a positive and encouraging environment at your dining table.

Source: Psychology Today