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18 month old vegetable ideas

17 replies

PopcornAndWine · 26/01/2021 18:18

Hi all, 18 month old DD is a little bugger about eating veg. Meat, fruit, bread etc all no problem but I struggle to get veg into her. Here is some of what I do currently that works:

Roasted veg pasta sauce, blended
Hidden veg beef burgers (a Mummy Cooks recipe)
Mac n cheese muffins with well-disguised cauliflower
Home-made chips to go with sausages or chicken
Roasted pepper & tomato pasta sauce (Annabel karmel)

Any other suggestions very gratefully received!

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hermionieweasley · 26/01/2021 18:39

Veggie fritters with a dip?
Grate courgette and carrot into spag Bol
Pizza with veggie toppings
Soup and sarnie to dip in
Hulk mac and cheese

All hits with my two
What mummy makes cook book is very good

peapotter · 26/01/2021 18:41

Raw veg always goes down better here than cooked, treat it like fruit. Carrot sticks, peppers, tomatoes, cucumber. I put it on a plate with fruit, so they don’t think of them as different.

PopcornAndWine · 26/01/2021 19:15

Thank you. Is What Mummy Makes the one by Rebecca Wilson?

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Cormoran · 26/01/2021 19:33

Do you and your partner eat vegetables on a regular basis and does your DD see you buying them , prepare them and eat them?

PopcornAndWine · 26/01/2021 19:35

@Cormoran

Do you and your partner eat vegetables on a regular basis and does your DD see you buying them , prepare them and eat them?
Yes - I am actually a vegetarian so eat a very wide range of veg. We do quite often just give her what we are making - e.g. the other day I made roasted red pepper risotto and she ate that after I blended it slightly- I think its texture more than taste she doesn't like.
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Cormoran · 26/01/2021 21:14

At her age, she is ready to eat what you are eating and trying to sneak 20 gr of cauliflower in a muffin won't change her taste preference and soon or later you will get fed up of trying to hide.

Many toddlers who have eaten little vegetables or mainly from pouches will have a distorted taste when it comes to vegetables.
You are still in time to build a strong liking to vegetables but you need to make them the centre of the meal and prepare them in a tasty way.

Let her be part of all the process, from selecting the zucchini at the supermarket, washing it, and after you have thinly sliced it, brush it with olive oil , sprinkle the salt on top, and watch thought the oven door was it sizzles under the grill.
Kids can read our vibes and when we offer a food with the expectation they won't like it, they sense it.
Roast some pumpkin, and while prepping it, let her mix the content of the dish and rub oil, rosemary and garlic.
Have some peas on the kitchen counter and let her see you picking her one and eating it with pleasure.
Great some carrots, and let her sprinkle the chopped parsley on top, and hand her a spoon on top of which you will pour some olive oil, ...

You eat with all your senses, the noise of a knife chopping or a veggie sizzling in a pan, the smell of roasting veggies, the sight of the colour rainbow, and the touch of prepping it and the taste will only follow naturally

At the same time, while you work on the front of increasing her exposure to good tasting vegetables , you need to cut the competition of highly processed food if she has them even occasionally (baby crisps, puffed snacks, cereals bars , rice cakes, ...) as they alter both taste buds and gut bacteria (and these will send message to the brain for the food they want) .

Processed food, even chicken/vegetarian nuggets, completely alter the body response to food, so if you don't eliminate them, your attempts to change her preferences will not be very successful.

Thatwentbadly · 26/01/2021 21:20

I find giving vegetables as kind of starter while you are making dinner works really well.

Thatwentbadly · 26/01/2021 21:23

@Cormoran

At her age, she is ready to eat what you are eating and trying to sneak 20 gr of cauliflower in a muffin won't change her taste preference and soon or later you will get fed up of trying to hide.

Many toddlers who have eaten little vegetables or mainly from pouches will have a distorted taste when it comes to vegetables.
You are still in time to build a strong liking to vegetables but you need to make them the centre of the meal and prepare them in a tasty way.

Let her be part of all the process, from selecting the zucchini at the supermarket, washing it, and after you have thinly sliced it, brush it with olive oil , sprinkle the salt on top, and watch thought the oven door was it sizzles under the grill.
Kids can read our vibes and when we offer a food with the expectation they won't like it, they sense it.
Roast some pumpkin, and while prepping it, let her mix the content of the dish and rub oil, rosemary and garlic.
Have some peas on the kitchen counter and let her see you picking her one and eating it with pleasure.
Great some carrots, and let her sprinkle the chopped parsley on top, and hand her a spoon on top of which you will pour some olive oil, ...

You eat with all your senses, the noise of a knife chopping or a veggie sizzling in a pan, the smell of roasting veggies, the sight of the colour rainbow, and the touch of prepping it and the taste will only follow naturally

At the same time, while you work on the front of increasing her exposure to good tasting vegetables , you need to cut the competition of highly processed food if she has them even occasionally (baby crisps, puffed snacks, cereals bars , rice cakes, ...) as they alter both taste buds and gut bacteria (and these will send message to the brain for the food they want) .

Processed food, even chicken/vegetarian nuggets, completely alter the body response to food, so if you don't eliminate them, your attempts to change her preferences will not be very successful.

I did all of this with my first child, including growing veg and she still turned in a fussy eater. Sometimes child just do become fussy eater later and it’s not through what you have done.
Sarahlou63 · 26/01/2021 21:25

I think any 18 month old vegetables are probably beyond help. Sorry.

KeeefBurtain · 26/01/2021 21:27

@Thatwentbadly

I find giving vegetables as kind of starter while you are making dinner works really well.
I do this too. Dd is 20 months and loves a small tub of edamame beans or mini corn whilst waiting for her dinner.
polkadotpixie · 26/01/2021 21:31

My 2 year old loves corn on the cob, I don't think he realises it's a vegetable and demolishes them 😂

YakkityYakYakYak · 26/01/2021 21:33

I’m having the same problem with my 19 month old. She loves fruit but just isn’t interested in many vegetables. No idea what the right answer is but my approach at the moment is just to try not to make a big thing out of it, to keep giving her lots of different types of veg with dinner, eating the same so she sees me eating it, and gently encouraging her to try it. I figure if I try to always hide veg in something else, then she won’t get used to seeing it and it’ll be even more of an issue when she’s presented with it in the future.

And I make sure that a few times a week we have the few vegetables that I know she actually will eat (sweetcorn and cucumber for some reason is okay, but nothing else)

No idea if this approach will work ultimately though!

YakkityYakYakYak · 26/01/2021 21:35

I find giving vegetables as kind of starter while you are making dinner works really well

Great idea. I’m going to start doing that.

Cormoran · 26/01/2021 21:37

It is a very interesting topic and food culture plays a big role.
We have been posted in many countries for my DH's job and I have seen many approaches to feeding children.

"Fussy eater " only exists as a word in English , not in other languages, because there isn't a need for such a word because these kids are the exception, not dominant. Having a kids menu in restaurant in many countries is a sign that place is a tourist trap, as kids will eat half portions of normal menu.
UK eats an enormous amount of precessed foods from the earliest age. Kids are weaning on pouches (a vegetable in a pouch taste nothing like the fresh equivalent because of the pasteurisation process or because they are heavily made with sweet vegetables), snacks labelled as finger food, and so much toast (that spongy bread with a long list of ingredients) .

I now live in Australia and it is very interesting to observe how people and especially babies and toddlers eat. A shitload of packets. And they eat all the time, in their pram, supermarket trolley, cars, even playground, pool, beach, ... This is very strange to me.

Processed food will annihilate real food preference. Even that tiny bag of rice cakes

pickingdaisies · 26/01/2021 21:38

Home made sweet potato chips instead of regular potato. Much more nutritious.

Heyha · 26/01/2021 21:48

Oh I could have written this! DD will eat any fruit quite happily but veg is a challenge if it isn't sweetcorn or sweet potato (I think I've answered my own query there..). She used to like steamed carrot sticks so I'm going to try grating some raw.
She does like those Strong Roots vegan frozen products especially the quinoa pumpkin and spinach burger so they could be worth a go as a stepping stone?

I don't know why she's ended up like this as neither me nor her dad are very keen on fruit but we both eat all sorts of veg and she has always been given a bit of our food to try right from 6 months.

PopcornAndWine · 26/01/2021 22:18

Thanks all. Lots of interesting points and ideas to try. Part of the problem is probably time as well - I wfh full time so it's hard to find time to cook anything that requires a lot of prep Sad

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