White Lightning Axiom: Redux: Food Fight

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Food Fight

The Mrs sent me a few links regarding our picky eaters.
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T030800.asp
http://www.health24.com/child/Nutrition/833-855,11672.asp
http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/toddler/toddlernutrition.html

This one tip in particular was of interest to me:

8. Become a veggie vendor. I must have heard, "Doctor, he won't eat his vegetables" a thousand times. Yet, the child keeps right on growing. Vegetables require some creative marketing, as they seem to be the most contested food in households with young children. How much vegetables do toddlers need? Although kids should be offered three to five servings of veggies a day, for children under five, each serving need be only a tablespoon for each year of age. In other words, a two- year-old should ideally consume two tablespoons of vegetables three to five times a day. So if you aren't the proud parent of a veggie lover, try the following tricks:

Plant a garden with your child. Let her help care for the plants, harvest the ripe vegetables, and wash and prepare them. She will probably be much more interested in eating what she has helped to grow.
Slip grated or diced vegetables into favorite foods. Try adding them to rice, cottage cheese, cream cheese, guacamole, or even macaroni and cheese. Zucchini pancakes are a big hit at our house, as are carrot muffins.

Camouflage vegetables with a favorite sauce.

Use vegetables as finger foods and dip them in a favorite sauce or dip.

Using a small cookie cutter, cut the vegetables into interesting shapes.

Steam your greens. They are much more flavorful and usually sweeter than when raw.

Make veggie art . Create colorful faces with olive- slice eyes, tomato ears, mushroom noses, bell-pepper mustaches, and any other playful features you can think of. Our eighth child, Lauren, loved to put olives on the tip of each finger. "Olive fingers" would then nibble this nutritious and nutrient-dense food off her fingertips. Zucchini pancakes make a terrific face to which you can add pea eyes, a carrot nose, and cheese hair.

Concoct creative camouflages. There are all kinds of possible variations on the old standby "cheese in the trees" (cheese melted on steamed broccoli florets). Or, you can all enjoy the pleasure of veggies topped with peanut- butter sauce, a specialty of Asian cuisines.