If getting your children-especially young ones- to eat their vegetables seems like a major military assault on a well-defended enemy position, this article is for you! No longer will you have to plead, threaten, or shame your child into eating what is for some, the best part of the meal. Cast your worries of having blind children because they won't eat their carrots aside! Keep reading, and you will gain an understanding of some of the reasons why they don't eat their vegetables and ways to change this habit.
Understanding Why They Won't Eat Vegetables
Palette, jacked
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Before you can get your children to eat vegetables, you have to understand why they don't eat them in the first place. Children develop a taste for foods at an early age, therefore, the younger they are the better the chance you have of making them herbivores. Their "formative" years begin when they start chewing until the age of two! That's it; that's the window for creating well-rounded diners. What they eat in these critical years will be what they have a "taste" for until their teenage years. So, if you haven't given vegetables their proper place on your child's developing palette, it will be struggleville to get them to eat vegetables during their developing years when they will need them the most.
Monkey see, monkey do
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However, don't think little Susie should be eating her veggies because you fed them to her during her formative years; perish the thought! The act of dining (eating at a table with silverware) is a social construct with social queues and social graces that your children adapt from-you guessed it- YOU! So even if Susie chowed down on broccoli when she was one, she will stop eating broccoli if she doesn't see her parents, or siblings, or friends eating it as well. At this point in your child's life, you have to put your Jesus on and sacrifice your desires for their well-being (because parents trump siblings AND friends), and like a loyal disciple, they will follow wherever you lead (until their teenage years).
Palatable
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Once you've helped your children to develop a taste for vegetables and made an example of yourself, you have to make sure the vegetables taste good-to them! Just because your doctor put you on a low sodium diet doesn't mean your children should be subjugated to bland vegetables. Nothing brings out the flavor of a vegetable quite like salt does; it's the king of the trap-hands down! But you know this (which is why your sodium level is through the roof)! Even if you don't want to use salt, there are other substitutions to consider when preparing vegetables. Garlic powder has a certain affect on vegetables, as well as butter or lemon juice. And if you want to get fancy, you can use all three. Emphasize flavor with whatever you do.
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Now that you have a better hold on what might be keeping little Becky from going ham on her cauliflower, you will be a lot more confident in not only preparing succulent veggies but also in the thought they will be devoured. You now have the key to developing full-fledged vegetable consumers. For those of you who have ruined your child, these tips probably will not gain you any significant headway towards reaching your objective. You will have to keep looking out for future posts where I will divulge the secrets of Reversing the Aging Process or getting your pre-teen to think eating vegetables are cool.