Rainbow Blog

Quick Tips to get your kids to eat more Fruits and Veggies!

posted by: Kia

I’m so excited to have Amy Roskelley from Super Healthy Kids guest blog for us today!!!  We LOVE her healthy plates and her site is a great resource for healthy meal ideas!

In our family, I’ve found the easiest way to get my children to eat more fruits or vegetables is to make it accessible to them. Our fruit basket sits on the counter, where they can reach it! I want them to be able to get snacks themselves, so I put it right in their line of sight so they can see it at all times. Here are our quick tips to making fruits and vegetables available to your kids!

• Keep Your fruit basket on the counter! Even friends, neighbors, and cousins see the fruit basket and will often ask if they can have something from it! At which point I cringe because I’m stingy and I go between wanting all children in the world to be healthy, and then seeing how much I spend on produce to be eaten up by the neighbors (and then to see them eat a couple of bites of an apple and the leave it somewhere in my house to find a few days later.)

• We cut and wash vegetables and place them in the fridge where they we can pull them out quickly. If I’m cooking dinner, and the kids are starving because they are always starving, I pull out the bowl of chopped carrots and broccoli, and let them have at it while I am preparing dinner. Easy and accessible. I’ll admit though they usually won’t snack on the vegetables because all of a sudden they aren’t as hungry as they were before I offered veggies as a solution.

• When you send fruits and vegetables in their lunch boxes at school, can they eat them? I’ve sent oranges they couldn’t peel, I’ve sent apples they couldn’t eat (because of a loose tooth), I’ve sent bananas that go brown and they won’t eat, I’ve sent pears that have gotten beaten up and bruised before 11am lunch. I’ve sent canned bowls of fruit they don’t have a fork for. You get the idea. Make it easy for them to eat it. Cut the apple if you have to and add a few drops of lemon juice to keep it fresh. Peel the orange ahead of time and make sure to include napkins. Or try slicing and using a rubber band to hold it together.

• Have available a variety of options. Dried, frozen, fresh, juiced, canned, puréed etc. are all viable options when you are teaching kids to enjoy fruits and vegetables. Don’t be afraid to try them all.

Talk to your kids. Ask them what keeps them from eating the fruit and vegetables you buy. Ask them what will make it easier for them to eat it. If they are too young to tell you, observe them while they notice the fruits and vegetables. Find out what’s difficult for them and what works.
So, where is your fruit basket?

Quick Bio:
Amy Roskelley’s website, Super Healthy Kids, provides ideas and resources to help families eat better! Her meal plans and healthy kids plates make healthy meals simple and possible!