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Vegetable deception ok to get kids to eat healthy?
Filed under: Preschoolers, Big Kids, Tweens, Nutrition: Health, Mealtime, Resources, Books for Kids
Is hiding vegetables in your kids' food wrong? What if that's the only way to get your child to eat something green (that isn't a booger)? One cookbook author strongly disagrees with the notion that it's ok to sneak healthy foods into unhealthy ones, and she's aiming to do something about it. On her blog and in her new cookbook, anyway. Tanya Steel is the author of the newly published "real food for healthy kids." She's also a "food professional." She and co-author Tracey Seaman instead focus on glorifying vegetables and trying to make them more appealing rather than sticking them in a brownie. According to Steel, who has a good point, why would we want to send the message to our children that brownies are GOOD for you, when in fact we have an obesity crisis on our hands in the United States?
Steel acknowledges that not all children are that easy to coax into eating anything green. She also demures that it can be difficult to work your way back up the beaten path of feeding your kids things that aren't as healthy because you've run out of options of what they'll actually eat. I can empathize with this problem. We recently ended a bout of our son refusing to eat ANYTHING other than Cheerios. Sure, they're healthier than pork rinds, but I didn't spend my entire pregnancy eating broccoli only to have my kid refuse to even look at a vegetable.
Steel offers suggestions to help steer kids in the right direction. She suggests offering kids "no thank you bites" to get them used to a new food and making sure to set a good example by eating healthy foods yourself. She also, of course, promotes her healthy eating cookbook. "real food for healthy kids" may not be The Joy of Cooking that Steel claims (whimsically) it is, but I'm sure there's something in that cookbook, as with any book designed with kids in mind, to offer nutritious alternatives for our children.
What do you think? Is deception the only way to get a vegetable-refuser to consume some legumes? Or is it best to just keep trying to offer different kinds of vegetables in the hopes that eventually you'll see change?
Pic by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
8-09-2008 @ 1:19PM
Judy said...I don't think there is anything wrong with putting vegetables into things that make sense to have vegetables - such as pureeing some veggies into a pasta sauce, or even adding some greens to a smoothie. I can even see substituting something healthier in baked goods - I've heard of (but never tried) using pumpkin or applesauce in place of some of the fat. And certainly, making muffinsor breads with fruits or vegetables - my kids love banana muffins or pumpkin bread.
As far as putting vegetables into something like brownies? No. How many brownies would one have to eat to get a serving of veggies? And brownies are a yummy, decadent, sometimes TREAT. I'll take them with all the butter, eggs and sugar it calls for, thankyouverymuch!
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8-11-2008 @ 6:25PM
Jenni said...That's not really hiding the vegetables then; it's making them part of the dish. Which I am totally for. There is vegetables in pasta sauce anyway (okay, techincally it's a fruit, but still...); and many dishes do have the vegetables incorperated into them.
If you have to hide the vegetable and basically lie to your child, then you aren't teaching them to eat the healthy things and that is just doing them an injustice as they get older. Cooking healthier (applesauce instead of butter) is great and I'm all for it.
Hiding vegetables and not telling them (or even telling them but putting it in something like a brownie so that they will eat it) is not okay.
8-09-2008 @ 5:26PM
Sabrina said...While I'll admit it seems weird to hide veggies in EVERYTHING, I don't think it's wrong to hide them in some things. Personally I hide some and serve some. At the same time. We have a fruit at lunch every day and a vegetable at dinner every day. There's also a lot of healthy veggies and fruits mixed into the main courses I make (such as meatloaf, spaghetti, chicken casseroles and other dishes). Either way I know they're getting some of the nutrients they need. The kids are required to try one bite of everything before they're excused from the table, and I always try to encourage more than one bite.
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8-11-2008 @ 5:41AM
Tamyu said...Hmm... I think the problem isn`t as much the vegetables as the "hiding" part. Why not just substitute healthier vegetable based foods for the unhealthy ones? Brownies with "hidden" vegetables makes me cringe, but cinnamon carrot cake cut into squares doesn`t. It sort of seems to me like putting a few spoonfuls of vegetable juice into a glass of cola - there is so much "bad" that it will always outweigh the tiny bit of "good".
Then again, I have to say - if brownies are such a diet staple that they seem a good option to slip veggies into.... You really should be looking into a total overhaul of your family`s eating habits.
My son has never had any problems with vegetables (other than those that are particularly hard to chew - but he stills tries!) - I think this *probably* has a lot to do with the fact that we generally eat 2 or more stand alone vegetables at every meal, with meat only making an appearance once a day, in one dish at dinner (if at all!). It`s no surprise that children don`t like vegetables when they only see them once a day, if that.
On the other hand, fruit is expensive around here so we only have maybe a serving a day - and my son refuses to so much as touch it if presented as-is.
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8-11-2008 @ 3:10PM
Jennifer said...We are vegetarian and my son loves vegetables, so I don't have to consider this. But I suppose for children who are finicky, it's a good idea. Honestly though, I feel like children need to be taught how to eat healthy and if you spend all your time hiding veggies, once they're old enough to feed themselves, they'll never eat them!
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8-12-2008 @ 1:36AM
mybunnybaby said...I would like to chime in on this subject...
I've always eaten a lot of vegetables and was certain that getting my daughter to eat them would be a snap. I thought it was just a matter of exposure. Children eat what their parents eat, right? Well...
It all started out great. Spinach, asparagus, you name it...she opened her mouth like a little bird. Until she turned 1. Then it was all over. Now she vomits (!) at the *sight* of a vegetable on her plate. So now I have given in to deception.
I don't go as far as putting spinach in brownies (because it seems like it would take A LOT of spinach to turn a brownie into a healthy snack), but I do puree veggies into pasta sauces, soups, casseroles, quesadillas and fruit purees.
I'm hoping that this is just a phase. All that pureeing is a lot of work!
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