Episode 19: Will you eat Your damn veggies!

Episode 19: Will you eat Your damn veggies!

Today, we're delving into a topic close to many parents' hearts - making vegetables fun for our little ones.

Let's face it, convincing kids to eat their greens can sometimes feel like an uphill battle, but don’t worry, I've got some tricks up my sleeve to share with you.

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Links
https://nourishwithkarina.com/feedingbabies
https://nourishwithkarina.com/3-week-feeding-kids-reset

Highlights:

Introduction (00:00.078)
Taste Preferences in Children (02:21.966)
Exposure to Food in Infants (04:37.23)
Introducing New Foods to Children (06:58.51)
Making Vegetables Taste Good for Kids (09:18.222)
Parenting and Nutrition: A Family Perspective (11:36.238)
Adopting Strategies for Children's Eating Habits (13:55.022)
Promoting Equality in Food Preferences (16:20.174)
The Power of Making Things Fun (18:44.302)
Changing the Story of Vegetable Eating (21:12.526)
Creating a Fun and Eager Environment for Children (23:34.574)

Show notes

READ TRANSCRIPT

Show Notes

Today, we're delving into a topic close to many parents' hearts - making vegetables fun for our little ones.

Let's face it, convincing kids to eat their greens can sometimes feel like an uphill battle, but don’t worry, I've got some tricks up my sleeve to share with you.

In this episode, we're going to discuss:

1. Understanding Why Kids Resist Veggies: From an evolutionary perspective to taste bud development, we'll explore why children are reluctant to eat their greens.

2. Creating a Positive Food Environment: Learn how to set the stage for enjoyable mealtimes that encourage exploration and experimentation with veggies.

3. Making Veggies Irresistible: Discover simple yet effective ways to enhance the taste and appeal of vegetables, turning them into sought-after treats.

4. Changing the Narrative: Explore how reframing our approach to vegetables can transform mealtime dynamics and empower kids to embrace healthier eating habits.

5. Practical Tips and Tricks: From fun presentation ideas to texture variations, I'll share actionable strategies to make veggies a hit at your family table.

If you're tired of mealtime battles and ready to turn veggies from foe to friend, then this episode is for you!

Remember, parenting is all about adapting and finding what works best for your family. If you are needing an effective feeding plan that will get your kids to eat healthier foods, check out my Nourishing Kids Membership at nourishwithkarina.com/membership and join the waitlist today! .

Thanks for tuning in, and see you next time! …

Learn more about my membership program, head over to: https://nourishwithkarina.com/membership

Introduction(00:00.238)
You're listening to the Easy Feed Podcast, episode number 19, how to make veggies fun. Hi there. I'm Karina Savage. And with over 20 years experience feeding children, including my own, I've learned all the secrets that busy mums need to get their children eating better and actually enjoying healthy foods. So a huge welcome to the Easy Feed Podcast. A huge welcome back to you.

It's so great to have you. I hope that you're all keeping well and today's topic is all about how to make vegetables fun because vegetables can often be the most painful and annoying part of dinner with kids. I get it. I've lived it for many years now and I'm happy to say that I am pretty much out the other side now but...

You know, that's not by much trial and tribulation over the years and finding the right method and what works and what won't work. So I'm here to share some of those tips with you today because, you know, we know veggies are good for us. We grew up being told that veggies are good for us. And then when we're parents, we know that they're good for our children and we really want them to eat it. And they often don't eat them and it drives us nuts.

So I'm here to shed a little light on why they may not eat vegetables, why you might not have eaten vegetables when you were growing up, and the factors that will influence their preferences. So what will influence whether they want to eat vegetables or not, or the vegetables that they like, and then what we can do about it and how we can make it a little more fun, because let's face it, kids are all about fun, aren't they? So without...

Any further ado, let's dive into it. So why don't kids eat vegetables? Well, if we start off from an evolutionary perspective, in the caveman era, when everybody was foraging for food, things that were green may have been potentially poisonous. So back in the day, not in my day, back in the caveman day, this is my day, back in the caveman era,

Taste Preferences in Children (02:21.966)
Something that was green could potentially have been poisonous. Now you look at animals, an animal that's green and spotty and, you know, fluorescent like a frog, it could be poisonous if it's green. From an environmental perspective, often those green things are poisonous. And so from an evolutionary perspective, some children will see green and just go, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, that just, that does not work with me. So.

that that can be very innate and from an evolutionary perspective. Having said that, doesn't mean that we can't move them to a place of trusting that food, but it just may mean that those green foods need a little more work. We need to work on building trust and familiarity with those green foods a little more. Kids' taste buds can very much be affected by their first one to two years of life.

Breastfed babies versus formula fed babies have different taste preferences. They've been exposed to different tastes. It even starts in utero. So what you as a mother eat when you're pregnant will influence the tastes that the baby or the fetus gets exposed to in the amniotic fluid when they're inside you. So it actually starts.

Before they're even born, they're exposed to different tastes through the amniotic fluid. And then when baby is born, whether you breastfeed or formula feed will influence again, their taste preferences. Another factor that definitely influences taste preferences is how solids were introduced and the environment at the table when those foods were being introduced is

also going to influence their experience and their willingness to try a food. If a mommy is super anxious and on the edge of her seat and has got that spoonful of broccoli and she's doing everything in her power to try and shove it down that baby's throat, the baby is going to be much more resistant to having that spoonful of broccoli. Then if that spoonful of broccoli was perhaps just popped on the baby's tray table, the baby could pick it up.

Exposure to Food in Infants (04:37.23)
stick their fingers in it, get it everywhere, learn, play, be messy with that food in a very non -pressurised, calm environment, that baby's going to have much more chance of eating broccoli very quickly because of the environment that it has been exposed to that food in. So a baby and a child that is exposed to a food in a very calm, positive, relaxed way where they can just ...

get to know that food and muck around, you know, stick their fingers in it or, you know, smear it in their hair. It's disgusting, but that's what babies need. So if a baby has been given that environment, then absolutely it's going to have much more of a chance of liking that food, such as a green vegetable, much quicker. Parents, we are stuck in this like conundrum of we really want our kids to eat the vegetables to be healthy.

But we know, well, I teach that if we put too much pressure on them, then there's no way they're going to want to eat the vegetables. So we're caught between this rock and a hard place of trying to keep mealtimes calm and happy and just give them the food 15 or 20 times and then they'll eventually eat it. But also on the inside, desperately wanting them to eat it because you want them to thrive and not get sick if they go to daycare. You just want them to be healthy and eat.

but our vegetables, so without realizing it subconsciously, because we place so much importance on them eating vegetables, well, a lot of us do, we make it a thing without realizing it. And our subconscious cues are massive at the table and children pick up on that. Absolutely. So whether you mean to or not, how we talk about food, our behavior, our body language.

can definitely make or break a meal time. And kids read all those subconscious cues far better than adults. Kids are like sponges. And without realising it, if we make too much of a thing about vegetables, the kids just get scared off. They become super cautious about eating this coloured thing that we are so hell bent on them eating. They are

Introducing New Foods to Children (06:58.51)
They're even more cautious because they know that we're placing such an emphasis on it. It just makes it worse. It just makes it so much harder for them to be relaxed and just try that food and bring it into their repertoire of foods, just like they would bring in a chicken nugget or a hot chip. We need to try to have that same relaxed, calm approach. And they may not eat it as quickly as a chicken nugget or a hot chip because it's not loaded with salt and fat.

I mean, you can definitely try and add flavour with extra virgin olive oil or herbs and, or maybe even sprinkle a bit of salt on veggies because that's actually going to get them eating it. And we'll talk a bit later about making it tastier so that we can actually get them eating the vegetables. You can always, I mean, I don't recommend putting salt on any food under the age of one. And really I don't recommend putting salt on any food at all, but sometimes you're so desperate for them to eat vegetables.

It's okay to put a little bit of salt on to start with and then wind it back, pull it back, pull it completely out once they're eating that vegetable. But it's just to try to get them over that initial hurdle. But I definitely wouldn't do it first. I'd definitely try all of the fun, repeated exposure, just letting them have a go at it, being really calm. I'd try all of that first before I tried to sprinkle a little bit of salt on. But definitely one thing that you can consider later on down the track, if you are so desperate, because it can.

hope when the food tastes good. No brainer. This is something that the Italians do super, super well. And they really revere their vegetables. I grew up in an Italian household, basically, where my whole mum's side is from the North of Italy. And my nonna and my mum, great cooks. And they always serve vegetables beautifully. And I remember when I spent time with my mum's cousin and my family in the North of Italy and

Dinner time, you would start with a little bit of meat and you would have the lettuce and then you'd have all of these delicious vegetables. They were drowned in like extra virgin olive oil and they had garlic and they might've had a bit of salt on them, but you know, they were done so well. You wanted to eat these vegetables. It might've been capsicum in oil and balsamic, but you wanted to eat more of these vegetables because they tasted good.

Making Vegetables Taste Good for Kids (09:18.222)
And if we're just steaming or boiling veggies and chucking them on our kids' plate and going, come on, will you just eat your veggies? They're good for you. There's no surprise that they're not going to want to eat it because they taste terrible. And so we need to make them taste better. And I'm not saying you need to become a chef, but I'm saying consider putting some extra virgin olive oil or some dressing or some herbs, or as I said, a little bit of salt just to try to get them to enjoy the vegetables. I've started doing green beans in

garlic and olive oil and a little bit of salt because my daughter loves them and that way she's eating heaps of green beans. Whereas normally if I just steamed them, she wouldn't eat them. And so putting a little bit of effort into making veggies taste good, good and go a really long way in terms of getting your child to eat a much greater variety of coloured vegetables, even the green ones. Look, I remember when my daughter was

starting solids and she was probably maybe seven months old and I gave her broccoli for the first time and her face was that screwed up as if to say, what have you given me? And she hated it, but you know, I persisted and then I mixed it with other foods and somehow made it taste good. Actually, I know what I did. I added lemon juice and olive oil and she loves it that way and she loves broccoli now, which is brilliant.

You know, it wasn't like that to start with and it takes time and you just have to try and stay positive and not go, she hates broccoli. Will you just eat the damn broccoli and get really dejected because, you know, it's easy to do. And you see all the things that say, you got to give the food 15 or 20 times and you're like, my God, that's so many times. my goodness. But if you're just doing it as part of your family meal and you just chuck a little bit on their plate.

then that's a much easier way of doing it. So you're not wasting a whole lot of food. And that's why I always say, try and just give them little test foods of foods that you're already eating and cooking. Just don't add a lot of salt because you don't really want to give it to the kids if there's like laden with salt. Well, you don't really want to be eating them yourself laden with salt. But anyway, this isn't about salt this podcast, but it does play a role because it helps to make things taste good. Right? Actually I was on, I do some segments on channel seven sunrise, and I was on that last week talking about.

Parenting and Nutrition: A Family Perspective (11:36.238)
salt, just a little diversion here, but there is some pretty good evidence now to recommend the use of potassium enriched salt, which is actually 50 % lower in sodium. And they swap some of it with the potassium. It actually helps to reduce blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and early death. So.

If anyone in the family's got history of heart disease or stroke or high blood pressure, then swapping to potassium enriched salt is going to be beneficial for your health, unless there's a history of kidney problems. So, I mean, then that's only a minority, but I just do need to say that. So that's a little one -on -one on salt. If you are adding them to your veggies, don't find the potassium enriched salt and you can get it in the supermarket. But the supply has been a bit of an issue lately and I think it will become more of an issue because now everybody's talking about it because it's...

This last study of like, you know, over 20 ,000 adults showed significant health benefits. So, so use herbs and spices first, but if you're using a bit of salt, use the potassium enriched salt on your veggies. So if you're listening right now and you're like, Karina, I do give them veggies on the side of their plate and they just are not having a bar of it. They're just not going to eat it. Don't worry. There are many, many millions of parents like you right now. I've been there. I get it.

The thing is, it's never too late to make changes and parenting is challenging. There's always going to be challenges that we all face. And if your biggest issue right now is veggies, then that's your biggest issues. Other people's biggest issues might be, you know, their child's not sleeping at night or their child may be addicted to screens. So everyone's got their own challenges and there is no feeding kids raw books.

We've all learned for better or worse from our parents as we grew up eating in our family home. So everyone will have a different take on beating and different beating experiences to draw on as well in terms of then how we feed our kids. Cause so often I think what we do as parents comes from what we learned from our parents. And so I guess at the end of the day, you have to decide whether

Adopting Strategies for Children's Eating Habits (13:55.022)
You want to adopt those same strategies as what happened when you were young. And sometimes we're like, no way, like that was horrendous. I'm never doing that with my kids. Sometimes we do it subconsciously without even realising. At the end of the day, we can always make positive changes if we're aware of it and we want to do it. And if you have a child who is refusing to eat their veggies, then something is up and something needs to change, right? There's always something that you can do.

But you also have to accept the fact that it might take a little time. But this is exactly why I do what I do and why I've created my Nourishing Kids membership. And inside that sits my Fussy Eating Flagship program, because it helps parents to realize where the gaps are, where the holes are, what's not working, what needs to change, and helps them to work out how to create an effective feeding plan and environment where your child will

eventually start to try new foods. So if you want to find out more, head to nourishwithKarina .com forward slash membership. That's nourish with Karina. That's K -A -R -I -N -A .com forward slash membership to find out more about that. It's currently a wait list, but my doors will be opening in a couple of weeks time, which is super, super exciting. I almost sounded a bit Dutch then, but super excited about that.

And can't wait to bring some more beautiful mums into my membership. Anyway, back to the veggies. So most of the time when our kids won't eat the veggies, we start talking more about them eating the veggies. And why do we do this? Because we care. We know the veggies are good for them and we just want them to eat the damn veggies. But it doesn't help. It actually makes it worse because we're making a thing of it. And whenever you make a thing of it, whatever that thing is,

becomes bigger than Ben had, it gets everyone's back up, it makes everyone anxious and things just go really pear shaped. So what do we need to do? We need to make it more fun. And I'm not saying you need to learn how to become a comedian or start throwing spaghetti against the wall, or I should say broccoli against the wall. I mean, we need to be really mindful of how we talk about vegetables, how we behave at dinnertime.

Promoting Equality in Food Preferences (16:20.174)
Do we put ice cream up on a pedestal and say, look, if you eat two bites of red capsicum, you'll get some chocolate ice cream. Because what's that teaching our kids? Teaching our kids that they've just got to get through the rubbish capsicum to get to the yummy ice cream. So subliminally, we are sending them these subconscious messages that the veggies are just the crappy stuff we've got to get through to, to get to the yummy stuff. So we're really putting...

a negative connotation without realising it on veggies and a positive connotation on the chocolate ice cream, which again, we don't necessarily want to do. If we can change the environment, our own mindset, our behaviour, our language around food and getting them to try veggies, it's going to change how they perceive the vegetables. We want the vegetables to move from something that kids view as a pressure food

to a food that seems like every other food on their plate. So it's an even playing field. There are protein, there are carbs, so there might be the chicken nuggets, the pasta, the veggies, they're all equal. We want everyone to be equal. We don't want to be putting positive and negative connotations or values on food because that's when children get confused and they're like, why do you so badly want me to eat that? Maybe I'm not going to eat that now. I'll tell you a story. A friend of ours,

And I'll let's just call him William for the sake of anonymity. He went to a writing camp with school holidays. He went to a writing camp teaching how to, I think it was how to write a persuasive text, for example. And at the end of the workshop, they were sharing their stories. They were sharing their persuasive texts and he was asked to stand up at the front and read out his texts that he'd written. So share his story.

He didn't want to do that. He was really anxious and worried. And when the teacher asked him, he was really hesitant. He was like, no, not doing it. Like, you know, he was worried. What if he said something silly and what if they all laughed at him? Goodness knows what was going through this 10 year old's head, but he really did not want to stand up. The teacher could totally see this and the teacher was a champion because do you know what he said to him next? He said, William, why don't you?

The Power of Making Things Fun (18:44.302)
Get up on that chair, stand up on that table and pretend you're the Prime Minister of the country and you read out your Prime Minister's speech. And do you know what happened? That completely changed the story in his mind. And just like that, he was up on that table in a flash giving his speech, giving his persuasive text. That story was completely changed in his mind because of what the teacher had just said. He'd made it fun.

He'd say, let's pretend you're the prime minister. Let's get up on that chair onto that table and let's give your speech like the prime minister would. So he just made it fun. He made it a game. It completely changed the story in William's mind, flipped him from a hell no to a hell yeah. And he got up and he did it. Just like that, his mind was changed. The thing is, we just have to find a little crack, a little road in.

That means that hell no changes to a hell yes. And that road in often involves things becoming fun, making things fun. Getting up on that table and pretending you are the prime minister of Australia became fun. Let me give you some other examples. Making mouth guards out of red capsicum pieces becomes fun. Biting into sweetcorn and squirting each other with it.

becomes fun. Peeling peas and seeing how many peas you get in your pod compared to your brother or sisters becomes fun. It changes the story in their mind from a story of, mum and dad are pressuring me to eat this to, this is fun, I'm going to bite into it. Without even thinking about it, they are eating their damn vegetables. Other ways to encourage them to eat their vegetables, as I said before,

Follow what the Italians do, make them taste good, use lots of extra virgin olive oil, garlic, herbs, and as I said, last resort, a little bit of salt if needed. But steaming them, so sort of doing a three quarter cooked in the steamer and then chucking them in the, I should say throwing them in the fry pan for the last couple of minutes in some garlic and olive oil can make them taste delicious. Changing the appearance can also make a big difference.

Changing the Story of Vegetable Eating (21:12.526)
So if you've just got a carrot that you've just chopped up into a soldier or however you normally present it, if you perhaps get a peeler and peel it finely and chuck a toothpick through it and say, well, you've got carrot hair tonight, or you cut it into a little star, I mean, it's a bit hard to cut raw carrot into a star, but you can cut something else into a star shape or making a little funny face out of two little bits of diced capsicum and a tiny bit of maybe grated carrot for the mouth or...

Just changing the appearance of the vegetable, whether you go from grated to round to stick to, or making a little funny face out of it, can really change the story in their mind. Again, it becomes fun. Sometimes changing the texture as well for those with sensory issues or the taste. So going from say raw capsicum to something that's been pickled in a jar where it's a bit more pickly, balsamicky vinegary type taste can be.

completely game changer because they like that pickled sour taste, they don't like the raw taste. Or some children really like frozen things, not cooked things. So just simply changing the texture or the form of the food from raw to cooked or frozen can really make the world of difference. Now, as I said, I've got loads more ideas up my sleeve inside my membership. So if you are interested in knowing more about

any of these tips, then please head to the waitlist and pop your name on the list there. The approach you take really depends on why your child is fussy with their vegetables to start with. And once you can understand why they're fussy, then you can get to work on reversing their fussy eating and getting them to eat their vegetables and transforming them into good eaters. So the next time you want to ...

firmly encourage your child to eat their damn vegetables. Just pause for a minute and have a think about your approach and just say to yourself, is there a better way? Is there a way that I can make this a little more fun without taking too much time or effort or energy? Cause everyone's exhausted by the end of the day. But is there something that I could do that will just slightly change the story in my child's mind?

Creating a Fun and Eager Environment for Children (23:34.574)
Because if you can find that little road in, that road in that turns that broccoli or that capsicum from a hell no to a hell yes. And I'm not saying that your child's going to say that, but you get my drift. Well, I hope your child doesn't say that. But that's what I'm talking about. It's so important that we can create an environment where our children are just having fun that they don't even think about.

whether to or to not, they just eat. And at the end of the day, that's where we want to get to with all the foods. So try to keep food as neutral as possible. Try to keep it fun and light. And as I said, don't take hours cutting up little like, you know, carrot stars or whatever, but just think, is there one little change you can make to your child's dinner plate, which is just going to make things more fun, which will then perhaps change that story in their mind. And remember,

The words we say, the words that come out of our mouth and our body language also play a huge role in our children's willingness to try food. It's a big package. It's that whole feeding environment. But remember, starting with a bit of fun and just changing things up a bit so it changes the story in their mind could make the world of difference. So I hope that's given you some food for thought. Pardon the pun.

I'm so grateful that you are here and you are enjoying the Easy Feed podcast. Please let your friends know about it. Share the love and please leave me a review. I would love to get this podcast out to even more and more people. The next podcast is going to be podcast episode number 20, which is very exciting. So have a wonderful week and I look forward to chatting with you next time. Bye for now.