To ask how you get vegetables into a toddler?

[BradPittsLeftTit]

And I do mean via food 😊

My toddler (2.5) isn't particularly fussy BUT his diet has slowly narrowed over the past few months so that everything vegetable related now gets rejected. I used to do a vegetable curry that I rammed with veg which he now won't touch. No peas with food, rejects anything remotely green and identifiable as veg or salad

He does seem to eat better at nursery and will eat most fruit but I'm conscious his main meals at home are slowly turning beige

Does anyone have any sneaky ways to get veg in or healthy meal ideas to give us a shake up?

Thank you!!

Where are you getting all of the vitamins and minerals from?

We are also only just starting to understand how the gut works. It’s estimated we need 15x different plants based foods per day to keep healthy.

My dc has just turned 3 - she enjoys veggies like broccoli and cauliflower, corn cob & peas but if I want to get extra veggies in that she won’t normally eat in their natural form , things like carrot/mushrooms/courgette etc, then I make a nice smooth sauce by roasting them with some garlic then blending them. She will happily eat spaghetti or another type of pasta with the sauce mixed in and a little cheese sprinkled on top👍🏼In fact she’s says it’s delicious!

Mine are older now but have always preferred raw veg. Worth a try?

Cut down the portion size of the other foods. So I do tuna pasta bake with veg on the side and reduce the pasta portion so it's only a spoon or two, then add more when the veggies have been eaten.

Grate it into the food so finely they don’t know it’s there

Annabel Karmel's Hidden Vegetable Sauce. With pasta or as a soup. Tricked 'em every time.

I used to use any veg I had to hand. So long as it was mainly tomatoes to hide THE GREEN it would be ok.

www.annabelkarmel.com/recipes/hidden-vegetable-tomato-sauce/

@OperaStation All the other food that you eat? Including stuff like cereal that's fortified. I 100% agree with you in terms of the importance of veggies and gut health and yes, in an ideal world, our toddlers would all have perfect diets. But they don't. The only point I was making is that if your child doesn't eat vegetables for a while, they're not going to end up with malnutrition. For the sake of everyone's sanity, there's no need to force them to eat vegetables.

I grate veg into sauce (I cba to eat it either) but also they have to choose two types of veg and they have to eat it. That’s the rules.

We are also only just starting to understand how the gut works. It’s estimated we need 15x different plants based foods per day to keep healthy.

i don’t think many of us who eat a normal amount of vegetables manage to consume that level of variety!

Homemade soup blended super smooth, veg blended into pasta sauce, I make mac and cheese and blend cauliflower into a purée and add to sauce, picky plates with a few bits of veg thrown in.
Get them involved with cooking as much as you can, you'll be surprised what they try when there's no pressure.
Always add a spoonful to their plate, even if you know they won't touch it it's always there as an option for them, they eventually will one day.
As for puddings I don't use food as a reward as it turns it into something special, if I put DD's pudding on the plate with the rest of her food she will usually eat that first but will always go back and eat the rest of her food. I think using pudding as a reward for eating dinner creates an unhealthy relationship with food, I was always told I couldn't have pudding until I finished my plate so would make myself finish even when I was full, it's meant that I've had to train myself in adult life to recognise when I'm full as I used to over eat.

My staple is frozen spinach balls and grated carrot (grated very thinly!!)
I put it in EVERYTHING

I just keep dishing them up in small amounts even though I know they will mostly be rejected. I don't comment on them and I do notice that he will often eat my peas/carrots/veg and not his own so I give him them off my plate. I know that it does often come good in the end (I have foster children now, my own are all grown and do eat veg despite the terrible toddler stage where they refused anything remotely vegetable shaped). I put plenty of chopped/grated vegetables into sauces where I can.

Blend them into a smooth tomato sauce for pasta. #stealthveg
My personal best was 8 different veggies in a sauce 💪🏼

I read two tips that both work on my DD. Raw as a snack and served in a silicone muffin tray separately.

I've no idea why but food served in muffin trays are much more likely to be accepted, apparently it's a thing.

Soup. All our lot ate vegetables in soup, completely oblivious to the fact that they were there, particularly if you blend it. Cream of carrot, etc.

Going against the grain here but try a more holistic approach. Is the child old enough to follow a story? If so get some library books about vegetables. I recommend Supertato - suitable for age 3 and up I'd say. Kids love it and it makes vegetables sound cool. I also tell my daughter that vegetables are the only way to get big and strong, and tell her the most ridiculous facts about vegetables to convince her to eat them - vaguely rooted in scientific studies I've read in the news e.g. tomatoes make you clever, mushrooms are good for your brain. Probably not what you are supposed to do but it works very well for me anyway! Age 4 she eats a wide range of vegetables after refusing everything except peas and sweetcorn as a baby and young toddler.

Another tip is to offer the vegetables as a starter before the rest of the meal, when they are hungry. Tell them the beige yummy stuff is cooling down and will be ready as soon as they eat the vegetables.

Try small portions too and keep offering with every meal. Make it the norm to have at least one vegetable with a meal - even something small like one or two cherry tomatoes and a bit of cucumber.

Just keep offering it. Mine prefer raw veg too so we do this a lot

Get them interested in vegetables and all food, including shopping and cooking with you, kids so much more interested in food they’ve had a hand in preparing

Present small plate of food. All has to get eaten to have seconds (I always let ours choose whatever bit seconds are). So if they liked the cheesy potato and want more but haven’t eaten their peas then they don’t get more. But once their first plate is cleared they can have as much cheesy potato without anything else to go with it if they want.
if they refuse say ‘oh dear, never mind that’s what there is’.

I also let them choose what veg they want. So carrot sticks, cucumber slices, sweetcorn, whatever etc all count - 2 veg per meal. New veg I expect them to try but they don’t have to finish. And cheese for us! A sprinkle of cheese helped the broccoli go down. Finally blending some veg into sauces if they eat sauce (eg pasta sauce) helps.

now they know the rules and don’t argue. They just accept that veg is part of every meal.

Mine seems to decide which vegetables he likes on a daily basis, so I try not to be discouraged if he declares he doesn't like carrots one day and just try again the next day.

Also, he is more likely to eat any food if he's helped me prepare it. Over the summer he helped get peas out of their pods. Taking tomatoes off their stalks is another one, and he also likes pressing the button on the food processor to make a smooth sauce for pasta or a veg soup he can dip bread into.

Pizza with extra veg added. Tomato sauce on pasta. And fruit for vitamins if they won’t eat veg. Mine are the same!

Honestly? Just stop for a bit. Then go back in gently with a cheesy sauce. Purée stuff into bolognaise etc.

Nothings glummer than looking at a plate of food you don't want.

No kid actually died without veg for a bit.

My little one has started throwing the veg on the floor now too 🙄 I’ve been relentless and just still giving him something with every dinner time meal but it’s hard. He’ll eat hidden veg in macaroni sauce. I put spinach through it then chopped up broccoli and cauliflower so it was hard to spot and put it through the sauce. Soup is always an option? Spaghetti bolognese with the sauce blended is another. I made a chili recently that was similar but do still feel like I need to also give him boring veg on the side because it looks like a healthier meal that way 🙈

Yes make them into a pasta sauce. So all the veggies chopped and cooked in a pot with oregano and basil etc. Then add tinned tomatoes. Then once its all cooked the blend it or magimix it into a sauce for pasta. Plop cheese on it and they no no better. Also can be used on pizza crust with cheese on top and popped into the oven.

Blitzed into sauce for pasta and pizzas.
Served a variety at each meal in little bowls on the table for everyone to help themselves.
Always had pepper sicks and cucumber and sweetcorn plus a variety of others on offer.