Do you have picky eaters in your house? If so, getting them to make healthy eating choices is often – if not always – like pulling a lion’s tooth: seriously painful for both of you.
But there are a few things you can do to persuade your picky eater – especially kids – to get healthier food into their system.
1. Hide vegetables in kids’ favorite foods.
In her book, Deceptively Delicious, Jessica Seinfeld (yes, Jerry’s wife) tells the story of how she struggled to get her kids to eat their veggies…until she began hiding them in her baked goods and meals! For example, she found her kids didn’t notice pureed broccoli in brownies and pureed cauliflower in macaroni and cheese.
Although I highly recommend replacing her conventional ingredients with more healthful ones – regular cheese with organic cheese and conventional flour with organic unbleached flour, for example – her recipes are a good starting point for any parent tired of fighting to get their kids to make healthier food choices.
2. Learn to make raw food treats.
If you have a high-quality food processor
3. Set snacking boundaries.
You may allow your children to eat as much fruit as they want in between meals, but have to ask permission to eat a cookie. Or, you might make a rule that conventional sweets may be eaten in limited quantities after dinner, and only after dinner.
You might also set aside a refrigerator drawer, or the bottom section of the refrigerator door, for healthy snacks. Load it up with raw organic cheese, fruit, vegetable sticks and raw treats and tell your kids they can access the section whenever they want, up to an hour before mealtime.
4. Serve green smoothies for breakfast or as snacks.
If you make them with spinach or leaf lettuce, green smoothies will retain their fruity flavor and have no bitterness. If you have a super picky child who objects to the green color, add berries.
Having a picky eater in the house doesn’t mean that every meal and snack needs to turn into a power struggle. Implement a couple of the ideas into your household routine, and your picky eaters will become healthier eaters without even trying!