Help!!!!! Getting a 5yr old to eat veggies

[Roann]

I am looking for advice from anyone to get a 5 yr old to eat veggies. She totally refuses any veggies at all. Anyone know a way I can introduce her to veggies without making a big fuss about it. She is not a big eater to begin with and getting any food at all in her is a battle. Help please!!!!!!!!!!!

Roann, how about blending them up and hiding them in a tomato sauce?

Does she actually not like the taste or is she being difficult?

I tell my son exactly what each food is for eg carrots help you see in the dark, spinach has got iron, popeye eats it etc. And in our house if you don't eat your dinner, there's no dessert! R.

Roann my 3yo son has taken an alleged dislike to veggies much to my annoyance!
He absolutely loves mince, so I grate a carrot and an onion ( using the finest side of the grater, which practically turns them to mush) into the mince. I also make burgers for him using the squelched up vegetables technique.
He is fine with soup, so long as there are no visible lumps.
I figure these small amounts are better than none.
Don't they just drive you crazy sometimes?

Hi Roann

I bet she eats chips though! (At least she gets some potato!) Will she eat salad type vegies in a hamburger or anything, or tomato sauce? Or soup? I also use the grated vegie trick in a bolognaise sauce, I use carrot, onion and zucchini. You can also grate them into meatballs and salmon or tuna patties. You can cut them into shapes and make patterns, a "traffic light" (tomato, with grated cheese or carrot, then lettuce) on a cracker or in a sandwich, or even a face on a plate (cherry tomato for eyes, cheese nose, celery mouth that kind of thing), or leave raw vegies with a yummy dip sitting on the table.

Sometimes it's just a battle of willpower and the more you pressure the more they resist! So if you just leave them there and let her decide and give choices, she might surprise you! (I have a freind whose child wont eat anything green, and another whose 5 yo ds loves broccoli as he thinks he's a giant eating a tree!)

Good luck! (If you are worried about her lacking vitamins etc try the chewable children's vitamins - they are yummy or so my kids tell me!)

Does she like suasages? if so, there's a range sold by Sainsburys and other supermarkets called vegetarian gourmet sausages. They are stuffed full of leaks and other vegetables and they are a big hit with my veggie-avoiding sons.

Like Rhiannon, our house rule is no pudding till you've had your 'proper' food. This works well with the foodie 7 year old, but not so well as yet with the 2-year old whose eating habits are a law onto themselves. I live in hope.

My children generally prefer raw vegetables to cooked, especially bits of carrot while I'm cooking. Son ate some cabbage at the weekend, first time in history, in a coleslaw!

I've also tried serving the vegetables on their own as a first course when they're hungry enough to eat anything ha ha ...

I disguise veggies in tasty sauces and can usually fool mine into eating them. Eldest ds does like frozen mixed veg though, so that's quite lucky! Mine have never been big veggie (by themselves) eaters, apart from cherry tomatoes. But they have always been good fruit eaters, so that's good enough for me!

How about roasting a load of veggies in the oven and then pureeing them and adding to some pasta? My friend swears by it. Also making veggie style fish cakes, it seems to me that children are often fooled by a crispy outside and abot of tomato sauce!