Really well hidden vegetables?!

[Lovage]

DS (22 months) has never been keen on vegetables but has got terrible recently. It used to be that he'd eat them if they were pureed and mixed with plenty of cream cheese and put round pasta, which he loves. But now he won't touch the pasta if it's got sauce on it. He also used to wolf down filled pasta. Tonight he carefully peeled the pasta away from the filling and just ate the pasta.

Any ideas for ways to hide vegetables really well?

Or other strategies. I know I shouldn't stress so much about it. He eats plenty of fruit and will usually eat sweetcorn and occasionally peas and humous (which apparently counts as a veg!). We eat loads of veg and he sees us eat them the whole time because we usually eat together.

It really winds me up though. Deep breaths.

Meant to say - often he refuses to touch or taste them. Sometimes he does put them in his mouth but then pulls a face and spits them out, so it seems like he genuinely doesn't like them.

Many kids go thro a "suspicious" stage like this, and it's really important to keep putting the veg on the plate, even tho it goes straight into the bin.

Will he drink smoothies? Do you have a juicer? That will get the good stuff into him, and at this age they don't need much fruit and veg to get the nutrients they need.

Very important to relax and act like you haven't even noticed.

All I have said may be utter bollocks, I'm no nutritionist, but I speak from experience and I believe it wholeheartedly

keep offering, keep offering, they need to try it x number of times before they'll eat it.

here's a thread about DS, who ate everything he was offered and then stopped abruptly at about 20m

I make spag bol and grate carrot and courgette in it. DDS not eat courgette if I give it to them whole but will if in spag bol.

Another one is swede, cook it with carrot and mash together.

Stew you can add all sorts in, did this with DH, he watched me prepare a stew one day and said "I don't eat swede!" I laughed and told him he had eaten it every time I had made a stew!

Ok, I agree wholeheartedly with keep offering. Put them on the plate and with any luck he'll try eventually.
However, I will admit to doing some 'hiding' of veg just to make me feel that DD has eaten some and to help me be more relaxed about the refusing.
My two main tricks are cheesy vegetable muffin type things, or to bake a sweet potato/roasted vegetable loaf. If your DS is like my DD, bread is never refused!
Good luck!

DD stopped eating all veg at 15m and has gradually come back to it (but would still rather avoid it given the opportunity).

One thing she loved were veg fritters, it was an Annabel Karmel recipe, which doesn't appear to be available online, but this is fairly close to it - with tom sauce on the side for dipping, they went down quite well!

Another thing that worked (for a short time - it was a bit like dealing with The Borg, once one thing worked and I'd being to think I'd cracked it, she'd then turn her nose up at it and I'd be back to square one!) was mixing chopped cooked veg up with plain yoghurt. Fooled her for a while!

She also loves guacamole, and would eat shedloads of that with little breadsticks. HTH - good luck!

TBH I I wouldn't hide the veg. He'll never learn to eat them. Keep trying with very soft veg, keep him topped up with fruit, juice, even multi vitamins if necessary. Don't let him see you worry but let him see you enjoying veg, he'll come round eventually

We used to make golden soup (with red lentils, carrots and tomatoes - or you could use butternut squash or any other veg of a similar colour) and once it's liquidised it's amazing how kids eat it. The principle can be applied to other soups eg green soup (leek and potato + optional fresh peas/green split peas). What about sweetcorn fritters? And does he like potatoes as they're perfectly good vegetables?

I had the same with my dd who is now 8 and I really regret not being persistent, I now still struggle with this issue. Like everyone else says, keep putting them on his plate and keep persisting.
I read somewhere that children need to try something a ridiculous amount of times before they get to like the taste, something like 12 times!!! I used to give up after 3 or 4 times which I have lived to regret.

Ok.

You can hide veg easy in tomato sauce if you wish.

Make a ratatouile and then blend up and add cheese and mixed with rice.

Lovely rissotto.

OR

you can keep trying with obvious clearly seen veg. A couple fo things that worked for me involved 'advertising'. so runner beans are for helping you run fast. butter beans 'taste' like butter. spinach leaves are for catapillers who are destined to turn into butterflies. you get the picture.

there's also this book. It is funny. his bottom falls off because he doesn't have vegetable glue

caterpillars

OH I blend veg up and hide it in lasagne and spag bol. when dcs where young I did this but made sure the same veg was also offered at the meal whole!.. they did learn to eat veg, but the hiding bit kept my mind at rest :0

He will keep refusing vegetables - perhaps for a year or two in worst case scenario.

You should keep offering them. You have to really try not to let it wind you up (hard I know)

There is likely to be progress but it is a very long dark tunnel (ime)so be prepared to stick at it

In English - I had the same with my two. Hugely vegetable averse for an eternity. Almost threw in the towel a few times. Kept at it with dogged persistence and now mine will eat majority of vegetables (aged 4 and 5 now), but still need encouragement and gentle coaxing from time to time

I found the Pampered chef chopper (there are cheaper versions available) very useful for hiding vegetables...

I never cook anything without veg in it anymore. I buy 3 or 4 leeks at a time then whizz them up in the food processor and keep in the fridge, and hurl handfuls into everything I make -- burgers, mashed potato, fish pie, spag bol, pasta... Tonight I made a macaroni cheese that had leeks and whizzed-up broccoli inside.

Shepherd's Pie is another good hiding place for veg.

I make "Monster Mash" (mash with peas pureed into it).

My DS1 physically retches if he eats lettuce.

Yesterday I got him to eat half a tomato (a triumph!) by cutting fresh tomatoes in half, removing the seeds, tucking a cube of mozzerella inside, drizzling with olive oil and grilling. Fucking song and dance, really. And he only ate it because I completely lied to him and told them they were "Brainy Tomatoes", that Brains from Thunderbirds had invented to get the other Thunderbirds eating tomatoes.