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Dudi
Starck
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Convince
yourself first - find out more about vegetables.
Why do I want my kids to eat them anyway? How will it make
their lives better? Short answer: Vegetables are really,
really important for getting all kinds of vitamins and minerals
that are difficult to get anywhere else. Long answer: Read
books that can help you understand how vegetables make us
healthier. Some of my favorite sources that answer my questions
about this without going into organic chemistry are:
- The
New Laurel's Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery
and Nutrition, by Laurel Robertson, et al. Forget
the anti-meat polemics and enjoy the detailed information
on every vegetable you can think of - how to grow, store
and prepare it. This book is a great buy - good, chatty
information on nutrition, tasty recipes, and excellent
tables with nutritional info in the back.
- Brewer Medical Diet for Normal and High-Risk Pregnancy:
A Leading Obstetrician's Guide to Every Stage of Pregnancy,
by Gail S. Brewer and Thomas H. Brewer, M.D. When I
read this during pregnancy, I finally understood just
how many vegetables a day I ought to be eating. It even
provides a chart so you can make sure you - and your
children - get what you need. (The book is out of print,
but Dr. Brewer, now retired, runs a hot line: 802-388-0276.
- Confessions of a Sneaky Organic Cook, by Jane
Kinderlehrer
- Whole
Foods for the Whole Family Cookbook
by Roberta Johnson
- Get
'em while they're young. The
Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, by La Leche League,
recommends the following foods for introducing solids to
babies: a raw mashed banana, boiled or baked sweet potato,
or raw mashed avocado. Avocado! I have friends who swear
that their children developed a taste for vegetables because
they started them off with lots. Cooked carrots, green beans,
etc. are other possibilities. If you're eating them anyway,
it's easy to hand some to your baby. A few peas can keep
an adept toddler happy long enough for you to read this
article. As they grow older, make veggies a part of the
routine. My graduate student daughter recently reminisced:
"I think you were very smart about how you got us to
eat vegetables. You always cooked different ones and made
it clear that we had to take some, any amount, on to our
plate. I don't remember you ever telling us what to do with
it once it was on our plate, but we generally ended up eating
it and asking for more sometimes."
- Grow
your own. Just kidding. I put that in because I've
never read an article on this topic that doesn't suggest
this. Personally, whenever I tried this I got more potato
bugs than potatoes. However, I can attest that I have tasted
scrumptious vegetables from gardens of friends, and that
I have never seen a child eat vegetables more happily than
when she could pick a stringbean herself and eat it right
away. So maybe I should change this to: make friends with
people who grow their own.
- Have
them delivered. OK, if you can't walk out to the
back yard and pick them, have them come to you. I have my
local specialty store deliver them and I believe I don't
spend any more than I would at the supermarket. This is
because my fruit man picks out only the best for me. In
fact, he guarantees it: If he recommends grapefruit and
they're too sour for my family to eat, he'll give me something
else the next week, at no charge. He knows it's worth it
to keep a vegetable-loving family like mine as his regular
customers.
- Keep
things discrete. No, I don't mean discreet. I mean,
some kids hate having their favorite veggie mixed in with
all those distractions. My son likes lettuce, but refuses
to eat salad. Solution: Serve a salad bar every night -
cut up the veggies just as you would for salad, but serve
them in separate little piles instead of mixed up in a bowl.
That way you can have your onions, too.
- Mix
things up. Yes, I know I just said the opposite,
but remember, just as vegetables are different and varied,
so are children. And some prefer not to know all the good
things you are serving them. So when you make vegetable
soup, puree it. Zucchini haters probably won't even notice
they're in there, if you hide them behind some split peas
and sweet potatoes. But if the whole family loves potatoes
(mine does; did you notice I keep mentioning them?), then
leave them unpureed. You can then pass your soup off as
"potato soup". The poor things will never know.
- Allow
your children to play with sharp, pointed objects.
Yes, I'm referring to kitchen knives and peelers. At first
you'll have to supervise, but after a while your children
will actually be helping you prepare dinner. When my child
would invite a friend for lunch after kindergarten, I used
to give them each a knife, cutting board, and cucumbers.
His friend was often shocked but delighted to be allowed
to use these items, and we never lost a finger. But they
did eat an amazing quantity of cucumbers. Older children
can move on to vegetables that are more difficult to cut,
and more nutritious.
- Give
vegetables the exposure they deserve. If everyone
is just sitting around and shmoozing, bring out fruit or
vegetables and just sit there, cutting them up. (This one
is good for teenagers.) They will keep taking pieces until
you get tired of cutting. Offer them raw at lunch, raw and
cooked at dinner. Keep them in the fridge, cut up, on a
pretty dish. If you do the cutting, they'll do the eating.
(For help on that cutting, see #7.)
- Make
them taste good - duh. If you usually serve your
veggies plain, raw or steamed, you can experiment once in
a while with different dips, dressings, and sauces. If you
can get your children to be lifelong veggie lovers, the
nutritional benefits will outweigh the small amounts of
fat. A quick dip/dressing that my kids like is mixing mayonnaise
with vinegar until it's not too thick to pour, but thick
enough to dip. You can add powdered or fresh garlic, paprika,
etc. We also like guacomole - mash an avocado and add lemon
juice, fresh garlic, salt, pepper or chili pepper and maybe
a chopped tomato.
- Ask
your friends for suggestions. This was a fun topic to
research - everyone had a tip.
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