A few days ago on Oprah, Jessica Seinfeld (wife of Jerry Seinfeld) shared her secret for getting her kids to eat their veggies. She uses vegetable purees and “hides” them in other foods such as scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese, and brownies. I would like to try some of her Deceptively Delicious Recipes but I don’t think I could do the whole puree thing every day.
I actually want my kids to enjoy their vegetables and know that they are eating them. My 18 month old daughter, Sariah loves most vegetables but she gets kind of unpreditictable when it comes to carrots and green beans. On those days when she decides she doesn’t like green beans I just melt some cheese over them and she’ll eat them.
I thought Dr Oz’s theory of why children don’t like vegetables was quite hilarious. He said that “10,000 years ago the [neanderthal] children weren’t supposed to like bitter tastes because they were supposed to keep out of things things that were poisonous and the sweet berries were safe”. Did the Neanderthal’s keep a journal?
October 12th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
When my kids were infants I made my own baby food–it saved so much money and was so easy. It is almost like what she does–you steam whatever you want, then I would put the steamed veggies in the blender with a little of the left over water, and blend it. Then it would go into an ice cube tray–and into the freezer. When everything was frozen, I would pull them out and into a gallon freezer bag. Then when we would be going out, and I would need food, I would just put an ice cube or two of peas, carrots, sweet potato or squash into a tupperware container, and it would be completely thaw and ready to eat when they were–so easy–so healthy! I’d never thought of continuing that with the older kids food! I may try!
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October 13th, 2007 at 10:50 am
I made my own baby food as well! I didn’t store them in ice cube trays for long because my daughter had and enormous appetite and I would end up using half the ice cube tray. I mostly stored them in tupperware containers. I guess I’ll be starting that again in about 3 months!
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October 14th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
lol That’s funny!
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October 14th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Aron just eats what we eat, smashed up though. (unless it is spicy or something)
Jon Jon is a VERY picky eater. He is an unusual case. He actually gags on vegetables, even when you hide them. I tried that.
One time I steamed vegetables and used the water to cook ramen noodle soup and he didn’t notice. Dipping veggies in ranch dip also worked.
My kids are weird though. I can bribe JOn JOn with the computer now and he seems to magically love vegetables.
Kids are funny.
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