I remember when my brother was a little kid, my parents could get him to eat almost anything by telling him that it tasted like hot dogs. I've tried this trick, and James does not fall for this at all. (Well, he's never even had a hot dog, but what I'm saying is that it won't work with any food that he likes!)
I have discovered a few things that have helped, though...oh, and trust me, we still have a LONG way to go with this kid...
1.) You can hide almost anything in a smoothie...
2.) Fish sticks look like chicken nuggets. hey, maybe still not the healthiest thing but they are another form of meat that my kid will now gladly eat, bringing his meat repertoire up to a whopping total of 2 things.
3.) James LOVES pancakes, but doesn't like anything ON them, he just picks them up and eats them - same with french toast. So, what do I do? I add some kind of fruit (like applesauce and/or bananas) to the batter, and voila! He (unknowingly) gets some extra fruit in his diet. hehehe.
4.) Thanks to this great book, my family has been eating more vegetables than usual. James even tried a little bit (he will now begrudgingly try one bite of whatever mommy makes him - hey, I am happy, it is one more bite than usual. Our favorite was his bite of mac and cheese - he put a huge bite in his mouth, gagged on it, but continued chewing and swallowed anyway - what a champ!!)
But seriously, Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld is a pretty awesome book. It is all about adding fruit and vegetable purees to recipes, making them much healthier for your family. All of the recipes we've tried so far have been awesome, and you can hardly tell there is squash or sweet potatoes in your food! Thanks to this book, our family has recently enjoyed several new yummy, healthy recipes, such as:
*mac and cheese with cauliflower
*sloppy joes with red peppers, sweet potatoes, celery and carrots
*chicken quesadillas with butternut squash
So, friends, how do you get your kids to eat healthy? I'd love to hear your brilliant ideas!
7 comments:
We somehow managed to get bartering to work with Beth since she was about a year old. Basically, if she's not eating very well, we take away her milk (she really likes her milk). When she gets upset ask her if she wants her milk. She excitedly says uh-huh and then we say, "then take a bite of X". It doesn't really matter what it is... she'll do it to get her milk back for a while.
This is probably somewhat cruel, but it has worked pretty well for us.
We do that too sometimes! Although it wouldn't work with milk - and kudos to you for rewarding her with something HEALTHY. :) what works for James is m&m's! Hey at least it helps him to take bites, right?
We do the milk thing too. Marshy LOVES milk. If we want him to drink juice though, we just tell him he drank all the milk and juice is the only thing left! He'll wait until he's thirsty enough, but it works out by the end of the meal. :)
We also tell him that all meat is chicken. He is a chicken nugget fanatic. My parents babysat one night and I had cooked a ham and told them to tell him it was chicken. He ended up eating 2 HUGE pieces of ham cuz he thought it was chicken.
Sometimes we even let him pretend that he's a puppy or kitty (mostly this is what Grandma Vicki does) when he refuses to eat his lunch. Kind of like in A Christmas Story when the mom tells the little boy to show her how the piggy eats...only not nearly as disgusting! haha
Jo that is awesome - we have TRIED telling James that "it's like chicken nuggets!" or have even CALLED things (like regular chicken) "chicken nuggets" - but alas, he won't fall for that.
I finally bought some Flax seed and Wheat Germ like we talked about. I love to sneak it it muffins, pancakes,cookies & smoothies. I still need your yummy pancake recipe.
When I am trying to get Spencer to eat something, it helps if I say "Let's both take a BIG bite of food!" Then I have to clap and make a big deal about how good he did. That usually works...if not then we resort to bribery, usually with sweets :)
I have done a few things with Maleia--
First of all she LOVES animals. So I ask her all the time how the elephants eat or if she can take a big bite of food like a lion does. She loves that! (ie. "Is this a big lion bite?" "That's a BABY elephant bite. Try a BIG elephant bite!" Also we have also told her (which may only work with little girls who are sure they are princesses) but I will tell her that I eat carrots because they make my eyes super pretty. I will take a bite and show her how pretty my eyes are. She likes to eat anything that makes her pretty--you could try saying that broccoli (or whatever) makes him strong then have your husband take a bite and show him his strong muscles. Then have James take a bite and show off his strong muscles on his arm....just an idea :) It works really well at our house.
Those are great ideas Jamie! So cute.
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