Children and green foods seem to have a love-hate relationship. When I say ‘green foods,’ I mean fruits and vegetables. Sometimes kids love them, such as when they’re blended into smoothies or baked into cakes. When they’re served in their natural form, kids often refuse to eat their five a day. It’s a problem that many of us parents are all too familiar with.
It’s fine hiding fruits and vegetables in your kid’s food, if it gets them to eat better. However, it’s also important to encourage them to make healthy choices for themselves. It might not matter right now, but as they get older, kids need to understand the importance of eating well.
Here are some creative ideas for teaching your children to love green foods, along with the best ways to encourage them to make healthy choices.
Encourage your children to help you to cook
One of the best ways to get your kids to eat better and make healthy choices for themselves is to encourage them to cook with you. Once a week, have a night where you all cook together. This will allow you to educate your children on what goes into different dishes to make them taste good. To encourage them to get involved and help you to cook, get them a chef’s apron and hat and a kid’s cookbook. It might sound strange, but often, it’s the little things that get kids excited about cooking.
Take your kids to the grocery store with you
Every parent has experienced a grocery store tantrum over a packet of cookies or a bottle of juice and has sworn never to take their kids to the store again. However, if you want your children to understand the importance of healthy eating, then taking them to the grocery store is a good idea. What a trip to the store will teach them is that making healthy choices isn’t just about eating vegetables. It’s also about buying quality ones, such as Boggiatto Produce, for instance. You can point out to them the healthiest foods for them and get them to pick a new food to try. A trip to the grocery store can be a fantastic opportunity to teach your children why it’s important to eat well and what foods are best for them.
Give them choices at mealtimes
At school, in restaurants, and at other people’s houses, your children get choices of what to eat. To encourage them to make healthy ones, let them pick and choose what they eat at home. Instead of serving meals already plated up, put a variety of dishes on the table and let them choose what they eat. Implement a rule that at each mealtime your child must have at least two servings of vegetables. This will ensure that they’re getting all the nutrients that they need, but they still get to pick which vegetables they eat. This method of encouraging healthy eating has proven highly successful. It has been shown to get kids to try foods that normally they would refuse to have on their plate.
Getting your kids to eat better and make healthier choices doesn’t have to be a struggle, it’s all in how you go about it.
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