December 28, 2017

How to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables

I am all about my kids eating all the veggies and wanted to share some of my tips! I am very lucky that Adalyn and Oliver are both good eaters and love their veggies. There are many things that I do to help them enjoy their vegetables and I would love to share them for any of you parents out there looking for a little help!


How to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables

1. Make it fun

I'll start with my #1 tip that works with the kids: make eating vegetables fun. When I'm about to make lunch, I may ask Adalyn which veggies that she wants to eat that day. We get excited saying that they're going to be so yummy and just share happiness about vegetables. If you act like eating vegetables are a chore or boring, kids will too. Say "Guess what? For dinner, we are having Brussels sprouts!!" in an excited voice. Then, the kids are more likely to be excited too. Also, we love listening to different fruit and vegetable songs on YouTube to create tons of excitement about veggies.

2. Toss them in a smoothie

A smoothie is a great way to get some vegetables into your kids even if they are not the biggest fan of them. My favorites are spinach or kale in a green smoothie, carrots, avocado, cucumbers or even cauliflower. A smoothie is such a great vehicle to pack in all the nutrients and kids typically love them. Try my Pina Colada Green Smoothie, Healthy Shamrock Shake or Carrot Berry Banana Smoothie.

3. Let them choose what to buy

When we go to our favorite fruit and vegetable market, I let Adalyn choose whatever she wants to buy. Sometimes, she asks me for peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, red cabbage, cole slaw, etc. When I am buying her vegetables or fruits, I do not mind letting her try whatever she wants. By letting kids do this, it helps them to get super excited to try it and then, they are more likely to want to eat it. I ask Adalyn's opinion on what meals we should eat too and then we talk about the nutrients in different foods. She is super interested in learning all of the different nutrients in each food.

4. Drink a vegetable blend juice

If your kids love to drink liquids like my daughter does, a fruit and veggie juice may be the way to get a little more vegetables into their diet. We like the good2grow Fruit and Veggie Blend which has no added sugar and is a blend of carrot and beet juice along with apple juice. They come in a reasonable ounce serving- kids certainly do not need a huge container of juice.


Adalyn drank one of these in seriously 2 minutes. She loved it!


The best part? They have the characters from Frozen on top- Elsa and Anna. Adalyn is the biggest Frozen fan and went crazy for these. We are totally keeping these containers and rinsing them out and filling with water or milk! They are too cute.


All good2grow products have no added sugars, artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. The toppers and bottles are BPA-free and dishwasher safe. You can use them again and again and they are spill-proof which is definitely a necessity in this house. You can find these at Kroger, CVS, Walgreens, Ahold, Safeway and more.


good2grow has two other product lines: 100% juice and Juicy Waters. Along with the Frozen toppers, they have Star Wars ones, Marvel superheroes, Disney princesses (we need all of these), Paw Patrol and more. So much fun!

5. Let them help in the kitchen

Adalyn and I have a blast in the kitchen together! She is a great helper and when she helps make something, she seems to like it even more. I bought kid's knives so that she can safely cut foods. We also love baking together and it helps her learn. A great thing to do with children.


6. Start them young

I am super passionate about starting babies on vegetables. I start my kids with green vegetables for their first foods: green beans, peas, spinach, avocado, etc. I then move on to orange vegetables. We do some oatmeal cereal for the iron but I am not big on giving babies cereal. I think that they have to get used to a more bitter taste before starting with something sweet. I skip the sweet blends of foods and make my own veggies for my kids. Once they are a little bigger, I let them have fruit but I truly believe that they should be having the savory flavors of vegetables first.

7. You have to eat them too!

Why would kids want to eat vegetables if they don't see their parents eating them? We eat all of our meals together and make sure to eat the same thing as the kids. I know that this does not work for everyone but right from about 7 months on, we start our kids eating the same thing as us and do not give them separate meals. The one exception is spicy foods which the kids cannot handle quite yet.

Today, I was eating a bowl of steamed kale and Adalyn was seriously begging me for bite after bite. When they see someone that they look up to eating something, they will want to eat it too!

Good luck and feel free to ask me any questions about feeding your kiddos!

This post is sponsored by good2grow.

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