For Christine, a mother of two daughters in Centennial, Colorado, all it takes is a bit of culinary creativity and some subtle sleight of hand in the kitchen to get her kids to eat their veggies. Chiara (age 7½ ) and Livia (age 3½) now adore broccoli and cauliflower in addition to perennial kid favorites like pizza and chicken nuggets.
Her secret? Disguising these nutrient-rich vegetables in an easy recipe like a stir-fry with soy, teriyaki, or another tasty sauce. “Both of our daughters get excited over cauliflower now after we made cooked cauliflower in cheese sauce!” Christine says.
She’s even gotten Chiara to eat carrots, a vegetable she normally hates when cooked: “We give them to her raw or we add chopped carrots to pasta sauce and she doesn't really notice them,” she says.
She also tries to set realistic expectations at the dinner table with her daughters, and involves them as much as possible with dinner planning. “We don't expect them to eat every vegetable we make, but as long as they eat enough of them on a regular basis, it's not a problem,” she explains. “Make it fun for them and appealing as possible—it certainly helped me to get some kids’ cookbooks and let them help out in the kitchen.”