(23-05-12) How to Get Kids to Eat Their Vegetables

A new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior found kids will
usually eat vegetables if they?re disguised in other foods.

If you grew up eating soggy spinach and limp broccoli, you at some point
likely developed a strong distaste for vegetables. That?s the only reason I can
imagine kids have such a hatred for this nutrient-dense food group that, when
correctly prepared, can be amazingly delicious.

Regardless, parents and school lunchrooms have invented all kind of clever
disguises to slip leafy greens into a kid-friendly palate.

You?ve no doubt seen ? maybe even tried ? the cookbooks, for instance, which
show how to hide vegetables in other foods so your kids will eat them.

Manufacturers, likewise, concoct clandestine methods to slip vegetables into
otherwise less-than-healthy foods, which kids then beg mom to put in the
grocery cart.

My point, as this study shows, is that we?ll do nearly anything to get kids to
eat their vegetables.

Researchers at Columbia University enrolled 68 elementary and middle school
children. They developed three foods for these kids: zucchini chocolate chip
bread, broccoli gingerbread spice cake, and chickpea chocolate chip cookies.

Here?s how it worked. Researchers presented students two foods. One listed the
food?s vegetable; the other didn?t.

So for instance, one label might read ?zucchini chocolate chip bread? and the
other simply ?gingerbread spice cake,? even though the gingerbread spice
(unbeknownst to the kids, because it wasn?t on the label) also contained
broccoli.

The kids loved the bread and cake regardless of whether it had the vegetable
label. In other words, even though they knew that bread had zucchini, they
enjoyed it just as much as the unlabeled bread.

The chickpea-labeled cookies, on the other hand, got huge thumbs down,
although the unlabeled chickpea cookies proved a big hit.

Seems there?s a bit of bias against chickpeas.

Either that, or these kids had no idea what chickpeas were. (Although that
didn?t stop them from devouring the unlabeled cookies.) While zucchini and
broccoli were vegetable staples, only 19% of the kids had chickpeas within the
past year.

These findings show that if you hide vegetables into dessert, the sweetness
will overpower any vegetable-y taste and kids will probably eat it. The study
also shows kids are less likely to choose unfamiliar foods.

It?s little wonder, then, that many adults also appear squeamish about trying
a new healthy food like quinoa and kohlrabi. Take a look at my book The 150
Healthiest Foods on Earth. How many of the more arcane foods have you tried?
(Kimchi, anyone?)

I?m all for kids getting their vegetables any way they can, but I?m not sure
if loading spinach into a chocolate chip cookie proves the healthiest way.

What if we just made vegetables taste better and even fun?

For one, serve vegetables fresh. There?s a world of difference between frozen
packaged and fresh spinach, for instance, and kids pick up on it right away.

Two, add some good fats like butter or olive oil to the vegetables. They?ll
taste much better, and the fat will help your kids absorb the fat-soluble
nutrients like beta-carotene and vitamin D.

I?ll leave you with some vegetable ideas I practically guarantee your kids
will love, no disguising required:

Fresh broccoli with butter
Spinach saut?ed in coconut oil and garlic
Baked sweet potato fries
Brussels sprouts with nitrate-free bacon and olive oil
Sliced zucchini and squash fries
Spaghetti squash with pesto
Sliced zucchini and squash ?breaded? with almond flour

Source: jonnybowden.com

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