Why I Don't Hide Vegetables in Kids Food
Tons of recipes all over the internet promise to hide veggies from your kiddo inside their favorite dishes. To be honest, sneaking in the good stuff sounds like the perfect idea. If all goes as planned, your kiddo will be chomping on a bunch of healthy goodness, none the wiser.
Tempting as that is, this is something I never do when prepping meals for clients, nor do I recommend that parents do so when they create meals for their child. Today, I’m sharing 3 reasons why I believe this well-meaning strategy is too risky for selective eaters, and what you can do instead.
Reasons Why I Don’t Hide Vegetables in Kids Food:
1) Your child may not only refuse the hidden veggie dish, but they might also start refusing their favorites.
Presumably, you’re going to sneak veggies into a food your child is already eating. So, say you take their mac & cheese and doctor it up with some cauliflower rice or a carrot puree, when your child takes a bite, they may realize that this is not their usual and refuse to eat it. What’s worse, the next time their regular mac & cheese is served, they might be mistrusting of it and refuse to eat that as well.
This is an all too common scenario and almost always feels really devastating to parents. When your child is a selective eater and already has few foods, losing another one is really tough.
2) If your child doesn’t know what they’re eating, they also don’t know what they like.
When you introduce new healthy foods to your child under disguise as something else they already like, they will go on believing that they only like a few things. On the flip side, you can show them that sometimes when they try new things, they learn they like it. When you introduce a new type of mac and cheese or other fave you can say, “Momma’s mixing it up today with something different. This is a new mac and cheese.” Then, after your honey tastes it, you add, “This one has cauliflower in it.” Now, your kiddo knows that they’ve tasted cauliflower. And, if they like it, they can actually request that dish in the future. Also, the next time they see cauliflower at the table in another dish, or cooked another way, they may be just a little bit more open to it.
3) If you don’t tell your child that they are eating something new, then you can’t celebrate them when they do it!
Do you know an AMAZINGLY effective way to get your child excited about eating a new food more than one time? Providing them with praise and affection and other goodness after they have done it. Call Grandma, tell the neighbors, and heavens to Betsy, tell your honey that you are SO stinkin’ proud of them for being brave and adventurous and trying something new!
Alright, now that we’ve covered my top 3 reasons to avoid being sneaky with healthy foods, I want to leave you with one, big, fat tip on what you can do instead.
Instead of hiding the healthy stuff, serve it alongside your child’s favorites.
So, let me set the scene. You want your child to try something new. You want to make it really likely that they will show interest and be willing to try it. So, you make something that’s really similar to what they already like, but you add a little bit of something new to it. You’re off to a great start! Going with the previous example, maybe you toss a little cauliflower rice into your mac & cheese bake, or maybe you put shredded carrots in the red sauce. Maybe you add a liquid vitamin to your child’s chocolate milk. Whatever it is, you shook it up a bit.
Here’s what to do next:
If it’s a change to your kiddo’s fave bevvie, use a different cup than usual to make sure your child knows this is something different. (Have you ever accidentally taken a drink of someone else’s cup before and been shocked by the taste on your tongue? …This is not what we are going for!)
If it’s a change to one of your honey’s favorite foods, serve it on a plate alongside 2 or 3 familiar foods that they like. One of these familiar foods could be the “regular” version of the new food (e.g., “Tonight we are having mac and cheese two ways.”) - but it doesn’t have to be. If the new food is an entree, plan to serve another familiar entree your honey likes at this meal. That way, if your child doesn’t eat a lot of the new recipe (or doesn’t try it) you can feel confident knowing that they got something else filling in their tummy.
When you offer the plate with the new food, tell your child you tried something different with the dish. You don’t have to go into all of the hairy details up front - you don’t want to make your child worry or throw up red flags. They just need to know that this is NOT the usual.
If your child does anything with the new food on their plate - investigates it, pokes it with their fork, smells it, picks it up, anything, take notice. Talk about what they are doing with the food and tell them that you LOVE IT.
If your child doesn’t do anything with the new food, you can simply comment at the end of the meal, “Mommy’s proud of you for having something new on your plate.” And then repeat this whole scenario again, with the same new food, sometime soon. Having multiple exposures to a new food can increase the likelihood that your honey will try it (and never presenting it again ensures that they won’t).
Have you ever tried to sneak something by on your honey at a mealtime? How did it go? Leave me a comment and tell me all about it!
This is not medical advice and is provided for educational purposes. As I describe here, a thorough assessment by a team of professionals before making mealtime changes is best practice.
