If your child refuses to eat vegetables, and you think that their presence in the diet is vital, then vegetables can be disguised.
To begin with, a few rules on how to accustom a child to vegetables:
– Do not force him to eat what he does not want, do not use blackmail and bribery. Better explain exactly what the benefits of this or that product are.
– Set your own example: if your parents eat vegetables every day, over time the picky baby will eat them.
– In the end, invite your child to compose a vegetable menu and go to the store to shop. Maybe you don’t know everything about your child, and his choice will pleasantly surprise you.
– Try to offer vegetables at a time when the child is especially hungry or ready to eat something for the company. For example, on a walk, instead of the usual cookies, offer the children apple and carrot slices.
– A child, like any person, perceives information not only by taste, but also visually. The brighter and more attractive the dish is, the greater the desire to eat it. Add color, lay out a mosaic of bell peppers, cucumber herb, a tomato and broccoli flower.
– Take the child with you to the dacha and let him get vegetables right from the garden.
– Grow vegetables on the windowsill, perhaps the child will be interested and want to eat what he has grown with his own hands.
If none of this works, these tips can help you mask vegetables you don’t like in other dishes or improve the taste of the vegetables themselves:
- Add something from your child’s favorite foods to vegetables, for example, you can decorate not only noodles with grated cheese, but also mashed peas or broccoli.
- Add finely chopped boiled vegetables to your favorite pasta – no one will refuse such a dish.
- Zucchini or cabbage can be hidden in your favorite meatballs.
- Almost all children love mashed potatoes. You can add white vegetables to it – celery or cauliflower, onions, zucchini, white cabbage and cauliflower. Or add color with carrots, peas, or broccoli. Try not to overdo it with additives so as not to overwhelm the main flavor.
- Instead of fruit salad, try vegetable salad, seasoning it with yogurt or sour cream.
- Vegetables can be added to the casserole: beat them in a blender until puree, add flour, egg and bake with cheese.
- Some vegetables are invisible in other foods, such as cottage cheese. Add greens to it and spread the pasta on bread or crackers.
- You can add a creamy taste to vegetables before cooking by steaming them in butter.
- Tomatoes can be used to make ketchup and season with herbs.
- Offer your child sweet vegetables – corn, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkin.
- Vegetables in the first courses mask well: serve puree soup instead of regular soup. For the very fussy, just cook the dishes in vegetable broth.
- Make a sauce with vegetables and serve with your favorite cutlets.