More on veggies

Part of Mommunism is bringing your expertise to the group for the benefit of all. Anytime there's a bee sting or a medication question, Jeanmarie (RN) gets a text. If someone is moving or considering new furniture, Traci (Interior Designer) is called upon to discuss cost/benefit analysis and maybe even draw a diagram. I'm not really the type to wait for people to ask my opinion, I just give it. I have forced all of these mamas (and papa) to attend my boot camp or Spinning classes. I recruit them for nutritional challenges and serve gluten-free crackers and raw milk goat cheese when I host parties.

Which reminds me: sorry, y'all

But I know that we all want our kids to be as healthy as they can, and since I think that eating well helps that along and since I think that eating vegetables is a big component of "eating well," here are some tricks I've recently come up with to get Eliza to continue to try new veggies:

• I use her love of the color purple. She has happily eaten purple cauliflower (yummy), purple radishes (too spicy) and purple carrots (meh, which echos her feelings about orange carrots)
• The power of choice. "Would you like to have a yellow bell pepper or a red bell pepper?" "Would you like the peel/skin on or off?"
• Unexpected delivery shapes. Slicing a pepper horizontally makes hearts and flowers, cucumbers become dipping spears, zucchini and squash get twisted into noodles. 
• Add butter. Eliza would eat butter with a spoon, so I put thin slivers on top of anything I suspect may be met with resistance. Often she'll pick up the butter and eat it plain first, but when she finds out that's all the butter she's getting, she'll often eat what it was topping. If your kid is a cheese fiend, cheese works well, too

The Bell Pepper Tantrum

My 2 and a half year old had an epic tantrum at lunch yesterday. Lunch is always a potential hot spot as tantrums are considerably more likely to happen when she is tired and lunch is often immediately before nap. A lunch staple is "pigs in a blanket" which is raw veggies wrapped up in a slice of turkey. We use a variety of veggies: steamed broccoli, cucumber, carrots, romaine hearts, celery, but most often (and her favorite) is bell pepper. I was out of peppers, so she had carrots and cucumber. She wanted bell pepper. We didn't have any. Cue meltdown.

I pretty much consider that a victory. What kid screams because they want more veggies?

And on that note, here's your Nutritionist's Tip of the Day: How To Get Your Kid To Eat Veggies
Step 1. Eat vegetables yourself
Step 2. Offer them to your child
It really is just that easy. Don't reward veggies, don't make it a big deal, just put them on everyone's plate and enjoy.