Creative Ways to Get Kids to Eat

Try an old fashioned ice tray. You can put little snacks in each one and make it colorful. My son was very active, so I would keep it on the coffee table for him to graze on. I was very careful to not put anything that might potentially choke since he is on the move. Make it colorful. Couple things to try (along with the green veggies)

Grated carrot
Small chunks of cheese
Grapes
Granola clusters

Try interspersing these things with the green veggies to make it colorful and he may pick up those green veggies without even paying to much attention. The green veggies are part of the "rainbow". I also would just remind my son that the snacks were there and NEVER pushed him to eat anything.

Another rule of thumb is to just continue to put it in front of him day after day. You never now, you might catch him at an "off" moment when he tries it.

Good Luck!

I believe your son probably just needs to be desensitized to the taste. Here is a q&a that illustrates this point http://www.drgreene.com/qa/when-your-baby-won%E2%80%99t-e...

Here is what I did to desensitize my kids to new veggies.

Serve up his regular food and then just put one bite of the new food on his plate also. The first time, just tell him it just needs to sit on his plate while he eats. The next time, ask him to touch it as he 'circles the plate' - by that I mean he should touch it and then take a bite each of his other food but before he takes another bite of his favorites, he needs to touch the new food. The next time, it would be to smell it, then next time lick it, then next time take the teeniest tiniest bite he can do and wash it down with water. Of course, praise when he successfully does any of this.

When he gets to the tiny bite step, make it a game. Like, let's see who can take the tiniest bite and you do it also. And then 'Wow, you took a tinier bite than me. You won!' And praise him for swallowing it. Stick with the tiny bites until he doesn't wash it down with water, then praise him for that too. Then the next meal up it to slightly bigger bites and ask him if he can finish that small piece of food during the meal. Praise, praise, praise. Eventually, you should be able to put a normal size helping and he should take normal size bites. I hope this helps.

We use finger foods to help my youngest her her veggies and try to incorporate her favorites..or at least those that I know she'll eat..into as many meals as possible. Also, we give them silly names like lima beans are "Super Hero beans".. because they have a lot of protein, they'll give her big muscles like a Super hero. Carrots are "X-ray eyes carrots".. I know it's silly, but she gets it and will eat 5 bites instead of turning up her nose. I also try not to overwhelm her with an adult serving on her plate.. I'll put only a bit or two on her plate in order for her to eat it all and avoid the "one more bite" issue. I know what she has on her plate is good enough. I also include a daily vitamin for them each day to help out where the food leaves off. Good Luck!! And really, just relax..they can sense your stress.. if it seems like a big deal to them, they'll be less likely to cooperate. :)

Hi A.,

Here are a few tricks that usually help:
- Try to involve him in the food making (from helping you choosing the nicest broccoli in the store to clean them at home...). Kids usually are more eager to eat what they prepared themselves
- Make funny looking dishes (smiley faces, landscapes...) Broccoli with peas make nice trees, cauliflowers nice clouds, etc. Depending on his centers of interest and your time, a veggie plate can turn into dinosaur, truck, football field...
- Let him play with the food and play with him ("Look, I could pile 1 piece of broccoli + 1 pce of spinach + 1 pce of meat on my fork and I can eat it all at once with my wide mouth. Can you do the same?" or "Look, if you always put a red pepper, a green one and a potato on your fork, it's like mommy's dress".) My son - who will turn 3 in May- always try to stick as many peas on his fork on a row without crushing them as he can.
- As suggested below, you can hide the veggies in other foods (croquettes, nuggets, burgers) or blend them into juices. My son loves carrot juice.

I have the book "Super baby food" from Beth Yaron. I used it to make baby food. I never used the toddler section but she has many recipes for toddlers, at the same time nutritional, cheap, easy and fun. You can borrow it at the library and steal some ideas.

Good luck!

I completely agree that you should not sneak veggies into their food. First of all, the process of baking broccoli into brownies compromises a lot of the nutritional value.

Somehow, my kids love broccoli, cauliflower, salad, and edamame. We've always had either fruits or veggies on their plates (fresh when possible because canned have so much added sodium/sugar).

Our 3 year-old has no choice in eating his veggies. He has to eat some before he may be excused from the table.

Dipping them is a good idea - it works well in our house.

But, I think just giving them the option of which to have and not letting them say no is the best approach (or at least the one that's worked the best for us). If we're making dinner, we'll ask if they want broccoli, mixed veggies, etc. When I'm cutting green peppers, I'll always offer a piece raw to them - they usually ask for more.

My husband HATES most veggies - so, I had to get him on board and to have the kids see him eating them to help.

Good luck!

i could use some tricks myself, i sneak them into things wherever i can, puree them, put chopped broccoli into rice/chili/sauce, whatever they like. when my kids were smaller, i made green eggs, pancakes, oatmeal,,, just puree spinach, kale, collard greens, and put some in. i used to freeze cubes of it and drop them into whatever i could get away with. do it with "green eggs and ham", worked for us for a while. also, there is a juice called green goodness by bolthouse farms, it looks gross, but somehow all my kids love it, has lots of nutrients in it, we drink lots of it. its way cheaper at bj's. i know you are looking for greens, but also remember that pureed cauliflower or yellow squash are invisible in most foods. these tricks will help get the foods in there, but you should keep serving it as well so he gets used to eating them eventually. good luck

You can put almost any veggie into lasagna, including spinach (or other greens), eggplant, zucchini, carrots, etc... It is not hiding them, but incorporating them into the casserole and kind of unifying the taste so the veggies don't stand out as much as they would if the child has a big serving of a "green thing" on their plate (though every once in awhile that should be served as well to get them used to tasting the veggies by themselves). Find flavors or foods that he DOES like, and find a way to work the veggies in without too much "sneaking."

Some of the other posts have great suggestions - I'm going to start using a few of them too :)

my son is 2 and a half and i cant get him to even eat on a daily basis which scares me but my ped. says hell eat when hes hungary which seems like very few times...but sneaking them in is what i try to do and when he does it he cant really tell a diference. He drink alot of pediasure this gives him what he doesnt get when he's being stuborn about not eating

My son started eating salad when I put a drop of dressing on EACH PIECE. He also like to dip them. It's tough for kids to use a fork, so making everything finger food is a must. I also found that he liked the funny shapes of the different types of greens in the mixed greens bag. Some days he only ate the spinach, others, only the red leaf lettuce. Now, he's 5 and doesn't mind salad at all.

I'm also a fan of pureed veggies added to regular foods...it's easy to "sneak" carrots into macaroni & cheese, but my son is especially fond of "green eggs"...spinach pureed into scrambled eggs. If he feels the need for ketchup, I'm really okay with that.

I would suggest the book "My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus." It's a great resource for picky eaters of all ages and has strategies as well as explanation of the reasons behind kids' refusals of certain foods. I have only skimmed the toddler section because my son is younger, but a couple things I remember are to try to really "normalize" eating vegetables by modeling, not fixing alternate meals, and not making a big deal of it or expect him to not like the foods. Another interesting thing I remember is that it takes something like 15 tries for kids to become accustomed to a new food, so you should ask him to at least try a bite each time and eventually he may like it.

I have found that in my family at least, leafy greens don't seem to be palatable until they get a little older. I was the same way as a kid. Maybe there is a REASON kids naturally avoid leafy greens? Maybe they can't handle the roughage? My kids started eating greens, on their own, about between age 6-11. Adding lettuce to tacos and sandwiches and things like that would get them used to the texture. I put a T or two of soy sauce in the water when I steam my broccoli. We all like it better that way.
I always gave fulvic acid to my kids, which has 60 trace minerals and elements needed by the body that they wouldn't get otherwise.
You can certainly juice a lot of veggies, greens and fruits. There are two different juicers, one works better for greens and another works better for harder fruits and veggies. Look up juicers online. Try epinions.com to see what people say about juicing. The Omega2000 seems to get good reviews. So does the champion. I've had juice that had greens in it , and you would never know!

My kids prefered the veggis raw instead of cooked. My almost 16 year old will eat a raw potato over a baked one. We used to call broccoli, trees and dip them in a lowfat/fatfree ranch dressing. They loved orange sticks (carrots) dipped in ranch also.

Hide them in meat loaf pasta sauce mac n cheese ect

I think sneaking is the wrong way to go. You are trying to teach him to eat and enjoy a variety of foods. As for us, we put spinach in EVERYTHING! I have two boys (2 1/2 and 4) and they enjoy all these options...I always put spinach in spaghetti sauce, it disappears. We always have spinach or broccoli in our scrambled eggs and macaroni and cheese (now they prefer it this way). We add it to taco meat, casseroles, etc. They still do not like to eat any leafy greens raw, so no salads, but I'm okay with that for now because they get enough cooked!
Hope this helps!