How to Get Kids to Eat Veggies


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Your kids not eating their fruits and veggies? Here's a simple trick that's been shown to increase consumption:

Well, one way seems to be to simply jazz up what they’re called. For example, instead of carrots how about offering "X-ray vision carrots"? When researchers tried that in five New York elementary schools, kids ate twice as many of Bug Bunny’s favorite food.

A second experiment at two more schools dealt with broccoli and green beans—two deeply unpopular items. But when renamed to "Tiny Tasty Tree Tops" and "Silly Dilly Green Beans," veggie consumption again doubled.

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Yes! Your idea #1 was another reason that i love veggies, nothing tastes quite as good as a fresh picked sweet pea right off the vine!
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How to get them to eat veggies and fruit? How about including them in your every day diets so they get used to it.
I was never picky as a child and always ate fruits and veggies with gusto b/c it was just a normal part of our diet at home.
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I got four teenagers eating vegetables. Three things that worked for various cases:

1. They planted, cultivated, picked, and ate them from the garden.
2. I made a homemade "salad bar" so they could just pick whatever raw vegetables they wanted, and they sometimes even made a salad with them.
3. I explained about maturing taste buds and how they were less sensitive to bitterness, so they should all try vegetables again that they thought they didn't like to see if they were "mature." And they all want to be "mature."
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So, does "eat them or go hungry" no longer work? That was the policy when I was little. I did go to bed without my dinner once because I didn't want brussel sprouts. I never did it again.

We live in a country with amazing abundance, where children are lucky enough to have plenty of vegetables to eat. Maybe they need to be grateful and eat their darn food.

I realize I sound cranky. No need to tell me.
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The best way to get kids to eat anything is to include them in the cooking process. Why are we trying to condition our kids to accept things that are marketed towards them? Reenforcing a consumer culture for young kids is counter intuitive to critical thought. Also you are just fibbing to your kids about stuff.
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