Hide your veggies

I admit it, I read a lot.  Books, magazines, cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, websites you name it.  I am a sucker for the written word.  Often, I am struck by something that is insightful, or brilliant and it inspires me to add an idea to my endless list of things I want to write about.  Today, however, I am struck not by brilliance, but by ridiculous ideas that don't work.

I am lazily flipping through one of my parenting magazines and I come across yet another article announcing I CAN get my children to eat more veggies if I turn them into smiley faces, hearts, or dinosaurs.  Somehow if I put my daughters peas in the shape of a smiley face she will miraculously forget that she hates peas, and eat them.  Why, because they are smiling at her of course!   I think my favorite example of this ridiculousness is a salad with red pepper in the shape of a heart.  It is still a salad, and unless my child is really, really flexible she still won't eat it...sorry.

I don't want to be misunderstood, my kids eat veggies.  I serve fruit and vegetables at (almost) every meal.  They even like a lot of different kinds, but even I struggle to get them to eat enough of them, who doesn't??   

I offer this as an alternative idea, just keep offering your kids veggies as they are.  Don't oil, cheese and butter them up until they are not worth it anymore.  If you want to use fun shapes, great!  But be honest with them they ARE vegetables, and the have to eat them.  More importantly, teach by example.  Are you getting your 10 servings of veggies a day? 

I'm just saying.....