Sneaky Ways to Make Kids Eat Veggies

Unless you are blessed with children that will put just about anything in their mouths, you will know how stressful it can be to try and make your little ones eat their veggies. It can feel like you are fighting against the wind, trying to get your little bundles of joy to bite, chew and swallow sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and other veggies they do not find appealing.

The frustration is because you are trying to do what’s best for them – trying to make sure they are eating a healthy diet.

So, for any parents who are struggling to get their children to eat veggies – this list of suggestions, tips, and Hail Marys is (possibly) for you.

Mash the Hell Out of Them

If there is one vegetable that most children love, it’s the potato. As anyone will tell you, though, when you are counting your fruit and vegetables, potatoes don’t count because of their starch content. However, as many kids love a bit of mashed potato, you can use potatoes to encourage…or trick your little ones to eat their vegetables.

If you boil most veg enough, like carrots, broccoli, Brussels etc., they are soft enough to mash up with potato. Although they will still be able to taste the vegetables a little, the predominant flavours will come from the buttery, creamy mash. If you think your children may be put off by the strange colours running through their mash, you could always hide it with a lot of gravy poured over the top. Mmm, gravy.

Blend it Up

Another incredibly easy way to hide vegetables in food is by using your handy food processor/mixer /blender(or whatever you call it). Simply blend all the veggies all the veggies up that you’re your kids to eat and incorporate them into sauces. Pasta sauces are great for this because often kids like the rich, sweet tomato sauce and if you are clever with the volumes, they won’t taste the other veggies.

Blended veggies are also great for creating tasty and nutritious soups. Grate some cheese over the soup and serve it up with lots of buttered bread as a distraction.

Wrap Up Those Veggies (In Bacon, Of Course)

Unless your children are taking a leaf out of Lisa Simpson’s book, most children tend to love the slightly sweet, salty goodness that you get from bacon. If your kids love bacon, you can use their love of piggy by-products by wrapping them around Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, Broccoli and other vegetables.

Then stick them in the oven, under the grill or in the frying pan and tell your kids they are special treats.

Build-a-Veggie-Burger

What kids don’t like tasty burgers? Why not exploit that love of burgers? Next time you are making burgers, whether you are sticking them on the BBQ or sticking them in a pan before you do it, incorporate some blended or grated vegetables into the ground mince and then cook them up.

Serve them in burger buns with ketchup or their favourite sauce with some fries!

Fruit (and Veggie) Smoothies for the Win

Again, you’re going to need your humble food mixer for this next suggestion. Take a selection of your children’s favourite fruits, the sweeter the better and then add in some vegetables. If you really want to make it morish, you can use yoghurt or ice cream to give it a more treat/dessert-like consistency and taste.

Give Them Incentives

It’s not really my place to say how you parent your children. I am merely offering up some suggestions. I’d normally say that bribing is not the best way to get children to do things…but desperate times call for desperate actions!

Of course, you could go down the money route, but given how crafty kids can be, you might find yourself short on cash before too long. Other incentives could be that they don’t get screen time until they have eaten all their veggies or they are not allowed pudding/dessert/whatever you call it in your neck of the woods and house.

Be creative and inventive. Remember, your children’s health is at risk…or something. Remember the end goal.

Tell Lies About the Veggies

If you are finding that many of these suggestions have not worked in the past or you can’t imagine them ever working, then you need to go to new levels of extreme. This may go against your moral code, but I need you to think more like Deadpool and Batman and less like Superman here.

Tell lies about the veggies on your kid’s plate. Try some of these –

“That broccoli told me you are rubbish at colouring in and that you always go outside of the lines. He was smug about it too!”

“Those green beans are going to steal your sweets from you if you don’t eat them first”

“The spinach made fun of Bluey (Or whatever TV show or movie your kid is into)”

Good old fashion propaganda can help turn an unappetizing piece of vegetable into an enemy your child wants to put through harm.

Some of you may not feel comfortable with the whole lying stuff. But, tell me this – how many of you perpetuate the belief your children have in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the fact that we live in a free society where all are treated equally?

Well. There you go then.

Use Reverse Psychology

Become a mentalist genius. Use phrases like “I don’t want you to eat your veggies. I want you to leave them and slowly tip them into that plant pot like you always do” Remember, the goal with this technique is to make your children do the one thing they don’t want to do by making them think you don’t want them to do it – obey you!

Take Hostages

You know in the real world when people don’t get what they want, what do they do? That’s right, they take hostages and use them to leverage a ransom. As awful as it may sound – when all else fails so far, this is the approach you may have to take. No one wants to go down this route – of course, they don’t. However, you need to ask yourself how much you care about your kids and want them to eat healthily? Do you want it bad enough that you will create a completely phoney and low-stakes hostage situation? If you said yes, you’re already a better parent in my eyes.

Now, this is the tricky bit. You need to take their most beloved toy and make it disappear. Then when they notice it is gone and start asking questions – have pictures ready on your phone with a message that says “Eat your greens or the (Whatever the toy is) gets it”

If you want to get a bit more complex with the setup you could make it so that one faction of veggies stole the toy and is holding it hostage. The only way to save the toy is to eat through the enemy.

Alien Race From Another Planet

Perhaps if they are old enough you could appeal to their love of Sci-Fi. You could suggest that the veggies are an evil race from another planet who are looking to take over the world. The only way to stop them is by fighting them and killing them – well, eating them.

Vegetables Have Taken Over the House and the Wi-Fi

Another scenario you could concoct is that the vegetables have taken over the house and, shock horror, the Wi-Fi. The only way to save the Wi-Fi and get the password is by fighting and eating vegetables.

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If all else fails, you could just you know give up and spend your time on finally writing that screenplay about evil vegetables or something similar.

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