The dreaded veggie

Veggies are not something that the Smurf will eat willingly a lot of the time.  If it's a green veggie then you are even more out of luck.  You may get a win with corn on the cob (that he does seem to like) mushrooms and onions and possibly potato, but anything else and you are asking for a battle

We have had lots of battles, and lots of vomiting, all due to veggies being given.  We want B to have a good healthy balanced diet, which requires veg, but we are starting to change our approach to how we get him to eat them.  

It seems to me that 2 year olds are the masters of battle strategy, amongst other things.  They are stubborn, wilful and never seem to forget the things they want to remember (if you want them to remember something then you are probably out of luck).  We have tried family dinners - this just means there are more of you to get annoyed, we have tried bribery and blackmail, we have tried being nice and being grumpy.  The net results of all this trying has been a headache and no real amount of veggies being eaten.

Our new approach has 3 strands, and thus far its being more successful than anything else we have tried

Phase 1: Shopping

B actually quite likes grocery shopping (it is good one of us does).  He can cross items off the list, ask constant what and why questions and he can be a helper getting things to put in the cart.  Yes we actually let him help.  He is a kid who loves to have a responsibility so we use that to our benefit. 

When we prepare the list he gets to pick items to add on, but at the store we encourage him to choose 1 fruit and 1 veggie not on the list to try.  He loves fruit so that is never a battle, and he likes the choosing of a veggie.  This is all about getting him excited about the food.  We can talk about its shape, colour, smell, how we will cook it etc.  All of this is about being positive and excited.  We may also look up videos on how the veg can be prepared to further amp up the excitement

Phase 2: Cooking 

Again B likes cooking - he would prefer to keep his hands clean, but tolerates getting messy if it means he can cook.  It could be something as simple as whisking eggs or putting food in a pan, all the way up to cooking an item.  

Being in the kitchen is a part of learning respect for food and seeing how it is prepared.  Understanding that work has to happen for you to eat is a good way for a child to be respectful of what is given to them.  It also means that you don't get to fib about what is in food.  A lot of the items we make have 'hidden' veg, but which i mean they have veg in them but it is not obvious.  I want B to know that there is veg in an item but he won't have to see it.  

Phase 3: Hidden and visible

So quite a few meals have the 'hidden veg' but I also want him to know that he can have veg on his plate too.  This means every meal he gets 2 small portions of veg on his plate.  I will encourage him to eat it, I will ask him to eat it, but I will not force him to.  

For us confrontation just leads to agitation over the whole meal, if he doesn't eat some of the veg and he is still hungry then he has to eat some to get afters, but if he tries he doesn't need to eat it all.  Our goal here is try some and don't make yourself sick - plus we know he has taken in veg via the 'hidden' items

It is a slow process, and sometimes frustrating, but B doesn't get upset about the veg being there, he will, with a little prodding eat some of the veg and dinner time is back to being peaceful and amicable.  Slow steps will get us there in the end

I am going to post some of our favourite hidden veg recipes here over time