This nutrient dense green smoothie has the best of both worlds: vegetables and fruits. No powder or sweetener is added, only natural ingredients. An introductory green smoothie to please your little ones.

When I proudly showed this super fresh smoothie full of green goodies to my little Ana, guess what she said? “Yucky!”

Do you have one of these moments at home, when your little ones turned their heads away from anything green, or you reached an impasse in getting them try only one bite of that vegetable? As a mom of two “picky eaters” aged 3 and 5, I speak from my own experience. Sometimes we have to resort to smoothies, vegetables bread/cakes, casseroles with grated veggies… to sneak more vegetables into our kids’ diet. It definitely helps, but there is something we often overlook, the very fact that we are giving the message “that vegetable tastes so bad that it has to be hidden into other food.” That’s why, disguising vegetables are only a temporary way to add veggies to their diet. In the long run, we need to work on helping them discover the magic of vegetables and develop a true love for them.

So I’ve written down a list of 4 do’s and 3 don’ts of how to teach kids love vegetables, mostly as a reminder to myself. The goal is not only to get kids eat more vegetables, here and now, but more important, to have a healthy relationship with food, from an early age. I hope you’ll find them helpful.

1. Do understand why they are picky. 

Between 2 and 6 year old is probably the worst period for appreciating vegetables. Many babies used to be good eaters, happily swallowing many different kinds of vegetables, mashed or cut into small pieces. Then when they turn toddlers, they refuse to eat much of anything, even reject previously accepted food. From an evolutionary perspective, it seems to be the nature’s way to protect these increasingly independent little eaters, from consuming new things that are potentially harmful. So they become defensive against vegetables that come in various colors and shapes. Furthermore, since bitterness may signal that a food has toxic elements, we naturally want to keep away from them. Unfortunately a lot of vegetables have a bitter taste.

Understanding this nature’s protection mechanism is very important. Your child is no more a worse eater than anyone else. So don’t be discouraged next time he/she says “no” again. We just need to keep offering veggies in different forms until they eventually welcome them. (Yes, that day will come. My older daughter Gabby eats much better now.) To be honest, knowing the little ones’ taste buds will be mature enough one day for more flavors is very assuring. Once I accepted this, I became less stressful about what my girls eat at every meal.

2. Don’t pressure.

Don’t pressure them to have to try new food, or finish their plates. I don’t support “one bite rule” and it simply have not worked on my Ana. She made it very clear “no” is “no”. I feel if I pressure her more it will bring bad outcome. The last thing you want is for them to have a negative feeling about a certain food because they are pressured to try it. Every one of us have at least one bad experience like that when we were little, aren’t we?

But don’t just give up. Some research shows that we need offer the same food up to 15 times before it will be accepted by a child. My strategy is keeping various colored vegetables at hand and serve 3 kinds for a meal. The girls appreciate the ability to choose, so at least one kind will be eaten.  

3. Do eat your vegetables before everything else.

When you are hungry, everything tastes better. If veggies are the only food available at the beginning of a meal, while we are the most hungry, we are likely to eat more of them.

When you serve a big portion of mac & cheese with a few broccolis, guess what a kid will eat more of? Even grown-ups sometimes need mind power to consume more vegetables. That’s why vegetables have never been called “comfort food”. Whenever we are tired or sad, most of us resort to sweets, carbs, not vegetables. But kids just don’t have much mind power. That’s why between pasta and spinach, between muffins and carrots, they seem to make bad choices every time. So don’t leave vegetables to compete with more attractive food on a plate.

The simplest way to get anybody to eat more vegetables is just serve them first. Make it a habit. What I do normally is giving my girls some raw veggies to munch on while I’m cooking dinner, or some roasted veggies if I have leftovers.

4. Don’t be fooled by vegetable products.

And the right ways to prepare a vegetable can change everything: Roasting brings out the sweetness of root vegetables; leafy greens taste good after being sauteed with healthy fat; and some veggies are just delicious when raw (tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes…). Explore to find out how you and your kiddo like for each vegetable.

5. Do try being a good role model.

One day, my 5 years old told me: “Mama, do you know daddy’s hiding candies in his closet?”. These little eyes are always watching us, and they copy what we do. No wonder we are all influenced by our parents, by what they eat, by how they prepare food. So if you want your kids to eat vegetables, you better too. Just letting them see you enjoying some vegetables is already a step towards the good direction. I would say I started paying more attention to my own diet after I became a mother. If vegetable dishes are not your strong suit, there are so many more vegetable recipes are shared online everyday, and that’s also one thing I plan to work on for this blog. 

6. Don’t set up a wrong reward system.

I used to say a lot to my girls during a meal: “Finish your vegetables then you can have a dessert”. Little did I know what a bad signal I was sending by saying this seemingly innocent sentence, until they started to ask for more and more desserts. Not only was I pressuring them to finish their plate, but also I was literally making eating vegetables even less enjoyable, so that it need to be recompensed by sweets. By doing so, I was also putting vegetables in competition with desserts (no matter how healthy they can be), a battle that former will never win, not in a little kid’s head anyway. I’m enforcing the idea that the vegetables are supposed to taste bad, and we need effort to eat them.

I’m thinking twice now before that sentence ever slips out my mouth. If possible, I try to put more emphasis on enjoying what are on our plate right now.

7. Do teach what are real vegetables.

Disguised vegetable dishes can backfire sometime. Once I put some grated zucchini in the pasta sauce, and Ana saw them, then she picked them out, one by one, and did not eat much, even the pasta. Although adults are more open to mingle of flavors, most of the kids prefer their food to be distinguishable. So if you put some vegetables into a dish, please be honest about it. We are building a trusting relationship here, not parents against the kids. In the long term, there are more benefits telling your kids what they are actually eating than hiding it from them. Whether or not they can have a peaceful relationship with food depends on it. 

Sometimes disguised vegetables go in the little tummies so well you just want to keep doing it. But if everything is disguised, they won’t even know what real vegetables look like. So whenever they’ve tried your smoothies with spinach, or burgers with minced eggplants, etc… it’s important to show them what the real vegetables look like that are actually in there. Or even better, let them help to prepare the dish/drink next time. Getting them involved in food preparation can decrease their fear for unfamiliar vegetables. Plant some veggies together in the yard if you can, or bring kids to visit a vegetable farm. These are all good ways to build a positive enjoyable relationship with vegetables.

Back to my green smoothie. Obviously, I failed to persuade my little Ana to try it, not even a bit. And she’s not going to change her mind any time soon.

But it’s OK.

For now, I’m enjoying it with a smily face while she’s observing.

Knowing that mama loves it, that alone is enough for the moment.

So how about your family? What do you do to help your kids love vegetables? Do you disguise them sometimes too? 

I would love to know. Please leave a comment.