More Veggies Please!

 When I was growing up the joke around our house was that you had to go to Meme & Papa's if you wanted to eat "real" food, i.e., anything fried. If you were to show up at the Davis house any day of the week chances were you'd be dining on fish or chicken, chicken or fish, baked, grilled or sauteed of course. The word fried was never in my Mom's culinary vocabulary. Strangely enough, I don't recall complaining too much. Sure we made jokes, but I typically enjoyed all of those healthy meals.

Now that I'm a mother, I've been thinking back to those days trying to figure out why I was the kid who loved lima beans and brussell sprouts. And then it dawned on me, I was always welcomed in the kitchen and encouraged to help my Mom prepare meals. As a young child she would let me help with simple tasks such as mixing and pouring. As I grew older I was allowed to cut veggies and cook. I'm confident these small steps played a huge roll in encouraging my healthy eating habits.

I was so confident in this method that I decided to try it out for myself. I'd attempted to have my two-year-old eat oatmeal for breakfast one morning and he wanted nothing to do with it. A few days later I asked if he wanted to help me cook the oatmeal and he was thrilled by the idea. He helped me measure the oats and poured the water in the pot, while I handled all of the cooking. Once the oatmeal was nice and mushy I let me him add raisens, cinnamon and a pinch of brown sugar. The child who turned his knows up to oatmeal a few days earlier had now cleaned his bowl and and was asking for more. This little trick has even worked for those veggies that he once had no interest in eating.

Now I'll be the first to admit this isn't the easiest way to coerce your little one into eating those healthy meals, but it seems to work for us when we have the time. If I don't have time for a little helper I just handle it myself and hope for the best. Sometimes he'll go for the veggies, sometimes he won't. In the end, I celebrate the fruit and veggie victories and try not feel guilty when he'll only eat chicken nuggets.

 

Submitted by: 

Lurenda Avery

Twitter Name: 

luavery