Seven-year-old eats almost no vegetables and I am worried about nutrition

[Teacupandclover]

I have a 7 year old boy who hates vegetables . When i say hate , he literally have not had any vegetables for atleast 2 years now . Occasionally i had tried to sneek in a bit of spinach in pasta sauce and things like that but not much benefits . Now i realise its my mistake but we have tried most options but did not work . Recently maybe around last 6 months he started eating beetroot . But tried other things but did not work until now.
He loves redmeat and fish with rice or breads .
He does not eat much fruits with the exception of watermelons and pineapple. Also no peanut butter or things like that . At this point i am seriously worried about his nutrition and development .

His height and weight are normal for his age but i am concerned as you can see , he is not having a balanced meal .

There's nothing wrong with not eating peanut butter or other nut spreads.
The fact he likes beetroot and some fruit is great. So always offer those and then also something else. Just keep new things available and don't pressure him. Eat them in front of him, let him get interested in cooking and preparing.
I'm sure he'll be fine. You can give vitamin tablets as well.

This could be my child but no meat or fish eaten here. He's very tall for his age. Watching with interest.

I’m not sure if you’re looking for ways to hide vegetables or not. You have had good advice from pps.

Ways I hide vegetables include: roasted courgette and aubergine and whatever you like mixed in pizza sauce, butternut squash roasted and whizzed up makes a creamy sauce for pasta, a quick sparkling water based batter makes a vegetable tempura or Frito misto. Kids often like that with mayo to dip or ketchup.

You can make veggie waffles by grating up carrot, courgette, sweet potato etc and dusting with flour and mixing to a loose batter with egg/milk. If you don’t have a waffle iron, you can just drop spoonfuls into a hot frying pan. My grandchildren like these with chopped spring onion, corn and cheese stirred in usually with ketchup to dip.

Mine also like apple slices spread with peanut butter or cream cheese and finally, I make bread and cakes into which I add grated veg.

Does everyone else in your household eat vegetables?

I would keep offering them even if it is on a side plate, give him what he likes to eat and also a multivitamin, he will be fine. Also does he like soup or smoothies ? I don't think i ever gave mine peanut butter.

This is me, and I’ve made it to nearly 40 years of age.
I caused my mum no end of stress and worry as a small child. I refused from being younger than a toddler, and she tried everything. I actually remember days when she was at her wits end.
Despite not necessarily being a fussy eater with anything else (love fish and seafood, smelly/mouldy cheeses, etc) I still do not eat vegetables or fruit. It’s a texture thing, plus I can’t stand the taste of anything that tastes too ‘earthy’.
He will be fine. Introduce a multivitamin if you haven’t already

ETA- my mum still tries to get me to eat them now. If I’m having a meal at hers, she always offers me vegetables, telling me how delicious x,y or z is 🫢
I don’t even respond now 🫠
Also, I’m fit and healthy, and not overweight. I just watch my diet in general

You don’t eat any fruit or veg at all? Tomato sauce? Soups? Smoothies? When you eat a roast it’s just meat?

Awww, don't worry too much, i have three strapping men for sons who hardly ate fruit or veg at 7! Then one went vegetarian as a teenager😂
Soup blitzed? Tomato, onion, celery and carrots. Or potate and leek worked. As did putting spaghetti in soup at the end with grated cheese and nice bread.
Home made pizza sauce:- saute a shallot/small onion in olive oil, add passata.
Pasta sauce but hide veg and blitz it with grated cheese on top.
Ovaltine instant hot chocolate as has loads of added vitamins and minerals👍
All else fails resort to bribery, eat little trees (broccolli) and carrots and get afters. (Not always sweet, one of mine always chose crisps, but none have any fillings even with sweet stuff after dinner most days)!
Have you tried sweetcorn, that seems one of easiest to get used to and petitpois. 💐

Multivitamin and just focus on good wide ranging nutrition that he will eat

Are you trying all different fruit and veg, ones that you wouldnt normally see or cook with?

When you said you tried to hide some spinach in pasta sauce, this implies he would have eaten the pasta sauce without the spinach, which presumably was tomato/onion/garlic etc?

If that is correct, how about chucking in some olives, he wouldnt notice if blitzed up, or nuts? Would he eat meat and fish with a 'breadcrumb' topping which is actually nuts and riced cauliflower?

Would he eat a smoothie, so put things like cucumber/carrot in with fruits?

And what about things like sweetcorn, what about pulses and legumes, would he eat baked beans? Home made baked beans?

Yes I eat tomato soup, or other soups where the vegetables are mushy (except for example broccoli soup, I can’t stand the taste of broccoli)
but it’s not like I’d eat soup every day to get my ‘5 a day’.

No veg on a roast, just meat and potatoes.
No to smoothies, as they usually contain banana and they are the devil. I could drink other juices blended, if I did them by hand and there were no seeds (strawberry seeds I can’t cope with but I don’t dislike the taste of strawberry).

I actually always knew when my mum was trying to get me to eat hidden veg. We laugh about it now

Mine was like this until he was 17. He is now a bit of a foodie at 21, and
cooks and eats all sorts - after4 years this still shocks me. He was so fussy.

He is over six foot, and a lovely, happy man. He is totally fine.

I have one who hates veg. As a toddler / small child would eat smooth sauces and fruit though and is slowly getting better.

Make macaroni cheese by cooking some cauliflower in stock, blitz and mix in lots of cheese and macaroni then bake.
Make soups by roasting veg then mixing with stock and blitzing.

Serve homemade smoothie with breakfast.

Make flavoured hummus and serve with toasted pittas.
Vitamin gummies everyday.

My Dd was the same, I was in the supermarket with her last week and she was buying butternut squash and stemmed brocoli!

Does he like salty food? For my dd, salty veg like olives, capers and samphire were gateway veggies and she's a bit less fussy now.

There's also the classic trick of offering some veg sticks before dinner when they're really hungry. Just put them on a plate and leave it nearby

I only ate carrots (raw) and lettuce until I was about 10. I now eat all veg (except peas, they’re the devils work). I survived my largely veg free childhood!
Keep offering but don’t force the issue.

As long as your son seems healthy with a good immune system try not to worry too much.
I do understand though - my 7yo daughter is the same despite me always getting her involved in cooking meals, chopping veg, making smoothies etc since she was a toddler. She loves that part - but won’t eat any veg except raw peppers & a bit of cucumber. Very occasionally will try a bit of sweetcorn or potato if bribed! She won’t eat homemade pasta sauce so will only have ketchup on pasta or have macaroni cheese. She does love a lot of different fruit tho & eats peanut butter / cheese / nuts / yoghurt for protein.
I had success with some ‘hidden veg’ frozen chicken stars / dinosaurs I got from Tesco - they had cauliflower and stuff in blended to a pulp so non detectable, and she liked them!
I’ve recently started giving her a daily multivitamin - Bassetts gummies in different flavours have been the only ones she seems to like & will take.

My DD was like this, she’d eat any meat, cucumber and red pepper. That was it pretty much until she was 14 when she began to show an interest in other foods. I always gave her an Innocent smoothie, Ella’s pouch and apple/orange juice. Now 18 she’s eating most veg and salad stuff but still only apples and bananas in terms of fruit. She’s fit and healthy. We still have Innocent smoothies in our fridge.

This is the hardest bit of trying to be a good parent! 2nd time round I’m a little more prepared here are my go to recipes for tricky eaters. You can save them all for free if you have their app which handy even the free version.

https://chop-it.com/m/MAIZXNP2

These are my top 10 in the list

1. Five-Spice Pork Noodles with Hidden Vegetables
2. Hidden Vegetable Chicken Katsu
3. Tomato and Red Lentil Pasta Sauce with Cheese Toasts
4. Hidden-Veg Beef & Lentil Lasagne
5. Cheesy Beef and Hidden Vegetable Burritos
6. Hidden Veg Mac & Cheese
7. Mini Lamb Burgers with Hidden Courgette
8. Hidden Veg Beef Bolognese
9. Lemon Salmon with Hidden Vegetable Rice

10. Chicken Gnocchi with Blended Vegetable Sauce

If he's a healthy weight and height, things probably aren't as bad as you think but I do feel your pain.

We have tended to add a lot of veg to mince based dishes - including lentils - which makes me feel a lot better.

DD was open to smoothies at that age so that was useful and i would make fruit based ones but always snuck a few extra things in - oats, flaxseeds, cucumber or avocado mostly!

Have you considered different ways of cooking or preparing veg? DD is tricky as she likes her food super super boring, but DS was a bit more interested in different flavours so, for example, liked it if I did vegetable tempura or would eat roasted chickpeas flavoured with paprika/cumin/salt.

Similarly, while he's mostly been a good eater, at one point I'm pretty sure he got most of his nutrition from hummus. Weirdly, he doesn't like it now.

Give the fruit he will eat plus vitamin tablets.

You can’t force him to eat. Give him a vitamin daily and hope for the best, there’s no point worrying over this. He’ll eat pineapples, watermelon and beetroot, that’s fantastic! Will he drink a fruit juice every morning? that’s another portion of fruit and veg which takes you to four. Honestly don’t worry too much yet, next year he may eat loads of at least another few pieces.

Peanut butter and nut butters are really not essential to a healthy diet. Plenty people like myself don't like them or are allergic and are perfectly healthy!

You can't force kids to eat vegetables and I think the more you make it an issue, the more resistance they will show. By all means of course continue to serve them but I wouldn't make any comment on whether they eat them or not. I think you're best best is to find new ways of cooking them i.e fritters, tempura and incorporating them into sauces. And invest in a really good multivitamin.

It's good to look at food eaten over a week rather than stressing every meal has to be perfectly balanced. While good diet is important, there are many adults out there today who were veg hating kids and now love them as an adult. Taste buds change over a lifetime.

Also good nutrition while of course important is not the sole factor in gooe health and development. It's part of a number of factors that make for a healthy kids such as fresh air, socialisation, exercise, healthy relationships and good mental health. Your child is on track for their weight and development so I really would not worry as much as you are!