A colorful subject

Tonight I want to talk about a very relevant topic, a topic of imperative pertinence to everyone. Well, perhaps a little less applicability than it should be, but all you parents who have ever said “eat your veggies” to your kids will, I hope, glean a morsel or two of every day practicality from this topic.

 I am here to give five ideas for making daily veggie eating less painful.

 Not so much for our dear children but for ourselves. No parent really wants to sit at the table for an extra forty-five minutes while their child slowly and complainingly nibbles on the veggies that were the subject of your law laying and now the bane of your existence. You just can’t back peddle and still maintain the parental respect they have for you. Or worse, you lay down the law and just can’t make it the forty- five minutes because they are so painfully slow and you have so much to do that at 20 minutes you say “well you did pretty good (all two bites), you can be done”. Then they sooooo have your number.

 Most of us don’t have the internal fortitude to excuse our children from their broccoli and serve the uneaten portion for  breakfast the next morning, however great the impact of that maneuver would be. Sadly, we are products of a very convenience oriented culture and much too frequently succumb to the genius of a four foot person over the opportunity to help them build a discipline. Good parenting is sometimes very laborious.

Don’t get me wrong my kids eat what is set before them, for the most part, but in learning their likes and dislikes, their propensities and reactions, I have developed stratagems that increase my success rate in the “you will eat your vegetables” department.

Because of Mason’s history with intense acid reflux he has some dislikes that are so strongly rooted that he would sooner sit at the table all night than eat some foods. If I notice he is standing in the kitchen gagging repeatedly I know that someone close by is eating a banana. If I want to avoid a messy and highly embarrassing scene I steer him clear of the banana eating public. So no I don’t “make him”, by threat or by pleading, eat that potassium filled fruit but he consumes plenty of them without his knowledge. The smoothies I make for him have banana and he always asks “there are no banana’s in this?” and I always say “it is my secret recipe and I don’t tell my secret recipe.” He can’t eat avocado’s without his gag reflex going out of control but I make a wonderful chocolate pudding with avocado’s, cocoa powder and maple syrup that he absolutely loves. We are highly evolved people here, we should be able to feed our kids healthy without a battle but if you must fight that battle all I can say is, make sure you win it. Once they see your weaknesses you might as well surrender.  Here we go:

1.       Pack a snack pack

How many of you moms after finishing morning routines have loaded your kids up to do errands or whatnot? How long is it, 15, maybe 20 minutes, before you hear these words “I’m hungry mom”. Hungry? We just had breakfast two hours ago. But of course, us self respecting moms rummage in our Mary Poppins bags and Presto!, out comes snacks. WE have cheese puffs or Cliff bars or, for the mom’s who have been around the block, fully packed lunches. Well of course my two year old is going to say he is hungry if he gets a Clif Bar tossed back to him. There are 22 grams of sugar in those bad boys. Great way to wire your kids before bringing them into the grocery store. Parents too often set their poor kids up to fail in public behavior because of what they allow them to consume. So enough said, I started cutting up cucumbers and celery, bagging sugar snap peas and baby carrots to test the true hunger of my brood. Sure enough ten o’clock in the car rolls around and my kids say they are hungry. I pass around the packed veggies letting them know I brought nothing else.

Nothing else you say? What if they don’t eat those veggies, they will be starving! On the contrary, at noon they will eat lunch like normal people. No starving happening here. Amazingly enough by the time we were back home, every bit of veggie was consumed, even to the full bag of baby carrots (I had a couple myself). This astounded me slightly. The need to snack is powerful enough to make kids eat vegetables. This became a habit with me. If the kids are truly in need of food they eat the vegetables and if they are just feeling like a snack without true hunger, they wait till lunch. Veggies will never spoil a child’s appetite for lunch or dinner amazingly enough.

2.       Mix and match

I put cucumbers in my fruit salad. They are such a wonderful crunchy vegetable and perfectly complimentary to fruit. A little organic plain yogurt mixed with it and if you have a shortage of super sweet fruit (which is highly unlikely in the summer time), just drizzle a little maple syrup over the top. When I don’t have the time for a full fruit salad I just mix cucumbers and strawberries, with the cuc’s cut nice and small. Kids like it and it doesn’t feel like they are eating veggies. It is easy to add small chopped veggies to a myriad of foods. Cold Quinoa or couscous with a little dressing for instance bears the weight of veggies admirably.

3.       Do the sneaky parent snack

If you feel peckish pull out some veggies and sit eating them yourself while you are hanging with your kids. Don’t offer them any or encourage them to try something.  Eight times out of ten my kids will snack with me.

4.       Lay down the law

We have at least SOME raw vegetables with every dinner and often lunch as well, however I make the portions doable. I know my kids don’t love bell peppers so I give them one small sliver. Yes they have to eat it but it is not a daunting demand. IF you have not been a law layer in this department before, start with a widely accepted veggie, one that you know your kids will not have too hard a time with and work up to a variety. It is also helpful to have a dessert incentive for finishing the required amount, especially during the training period. I freeze my own popsicles made out of regular organic fruit juice (no added sugar people). A home made pop will probably not give the necessary motivation if your kids are used to more decadent desserts. Just remember, with incentives you can’t cave and give them the desired sweets if they don’t eat the allotted veggies, even if you “feel so bad” that they are missing out. Let’s face it, we would all rather eat ice cream most of the time but our bodies need wholesome food to stay healthy and our kids need us to help them develop positive habits that help promote discipline and moderation in a culture that is anything but disciplined and moderate.

5.       Employ the dip

I buy fresh hummus every week from the farmers market and although I often purchase pita bread as well, we most of the time will sit down to a buffet of hummus and an assortment of vegetables. Different types of hummus and conveniently sized bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots, jicama, celery, cabbage (one of Mason’s favorites). Kids love to dip so get creative. Peanut butter, Blue cheese dressing (my personal favorite), whipped cream cheese, or yogurt perhaps. Don’t worry about a little spillage because the goal is to encourage good habits and good food.

I am not going to lengthen an already lengthy post by talking about the quality of our food, Another time perhaps. Just remember eat as close to nature as possible. Eat organic as much as possible. Kids especially don’t need pesticides and chemicals in their little bodies. The habits we instill now, though often difficult to be consistent in, carry the reward of strong immune systems, simple and pure cravings, ability to choose the beneficial over the easy and much much more.

We love them so we teach them what is good.