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Did you know that fewer than 15 percent of the two million American elementary school-age children eat the recommended five or more daily servings of fruits and vegetables.
Did you also know that a recent survey showed that top five sources of calories for children now days are, whole and chocolate milk, pizza, soft drinks, low-fat milk and cold cereal.
Those are not statistics to be proud of for sure! To be honest they are a bit embarrassing. But lets be honest for a minute.
Raising kids is HARD work!
Like, fake it till you make it, don’t stop till you drop, REALLY hard work!
Sometimes it takes all we have in us just to serve up a bowl of cereal.
Sometimes we are just in survival mode.
And that is OK!
Trust me, I get it!
I have been there SO MANY times!
So I want to preface my tip by saying that if you are in survival mode and your kids are just lucky they sell cheerios in bulk, that is OK! I am not condemning, or mom shaming anyone who is currently in this mode. In fact, I have the utmost respect for you for hanging in there and not giving up. That takes courage, your kids NEED you, and I promise that if you stay strong there will be a light at the end of your tunnel!
Ok, so now that I got all of that out of the way, you might be asking, so what is your trick? How do I get my kids to eat more fruits and vegetables? The answer is actually pretty simple…
Serve ALL fruits and vegetable BEFORE you serve the main course.
Let me explain….
I serve any fruits or vegetables we are eating before I give them their main course, and by main course I mean the meat, the pasta, the pizza, the chicken nuggets. You get the point!
I do this for a few reasons…
First is because my kids are more likely to eat the fruits and veggies when they are really hungry. If they have not been snacking endlessly all day they are usually pretty hungry at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My goal is to have sort of fresh fruit or vegetables chopped up and ready to go. That way when they tell me how hungry they are, they now have something they can snack on while I make their sandwich, and by the time I am done making their sandwich all of their fruit is GONE!
So often in the past I would put everything together on one plate and they would eat all of their sandwich, and be too full for the fruit or veggie! This method allows them to eat the good stuff first and if they don’t have room for the sandwich it is no big deal!
This method also helps with slow eaters because they usually look forward to the pizza or the nuggets, so if they know they have to finish their fruit or veggie first they are more likely to speed up the process!
If your child is a SUPER picky eater and does not like any fruits or vegetables, I want to encourage you to stay strong and start small. Even if you serve the same fruit or the same veggie, in very small doses, over and over again. That is still progress!
It is said that you may need to try a food OVER 20 times before you start to like it!
So DO NOT give up!
Almost everything I serve on a regular basis was frowned upon by at least one or more of my children at some point. I kept serving it anyway. My only requirement was for them to at least try it.
Repetition is the key to success in anything.
And yes, that even applies to eating your fruits and veggies!
Thanks for this!