Any devious ideas for hiding veggies?

ubamother

spaghetti and meatballs can hide onions, garlic, tomatoes, chopped/minced/grated carrot, courgettes which is a fair whack.
lots of kids take to corn on the cob
things with a familiar taste but healthy versions are good - home made baked fish fingers, chicken fingers, potato croquettes, pies with meat and veg fillings which could be made into pasty type shapes, hm oven potato wedges with dip
many kids of that age love food they can eat with their hands, but hate the texture/feel 'wet' food - gravy, soft mash. As most of the food you mention she eats is dry that could be worth considering.
Pizza she can 'make herself; - base could be plain naan, you provide a pureed tomato paste (with hidden stuff!) and she puts cheese/ham etc, on top and gets to watch it in and out of oven.

Having had the pain and joy of breaking a 3 yr old's bad eating pattern over a four day period it was end of day three before he'd even think about trying something - we won in the end and it was pure joy. We did have a secret weapon - other children sitting round him eating for England! not an option you can provide instantly I know!
If you have to feed different food after can I suggest something extremely boring and away from the table, somewhere really boring with no distractions and with you obviously ignoring her - pretend to read or something - that way she gets none of the fun and joy of sitting together chatting etc.
Good luck!

purpleivy

Do you have to be careful about deceiving children about what they're eating? I suppose this depends on whether you want the child to start eating and enjoying foods for their own sake, or whether you feel you want a child to get the veg and fruit down their necks whether they notice it or not, just so that they have had it. I just don't feel like 'hiding' things is a good idea. They may well become suspicious of everything you give them if they find that there is something you haven't been honest about.

My own feeling is that it's fine to present things in different ways (mine never liked swede on its own, but happy to eat it in combination with mash or carrots. Not keen on leeks, but love them in leek and potato soup.

I've never really thought that making faces with food or generally playing about with it is a good thing, fine, cut it up into manageable size pieces, but children need to know what things look like.

There are plenty of people that don't eat lots of fruit and veg that appear to be in good health.

valk_scot

WEll tbh you're not going to rectify three years of bad eating in one meal. Also if she's feeling a bit stressed about being left with you is it really fair to start giving her worryingly unfamiliar food? When I had notoriously fussy kids visiting I would make a point of trying to find something that both they and my kids would eat, or at least find out if the child would eat bread and butter and cheese cubes once they'd rejected the meal.

So if you want to try meatballs and pasta, go for the kind of pasta shapes she'll recognise, for example. Put it and the sauce seperate...she might reject the whole lot if she doesn't like the sauce. Kids tend to go for simple foods, not fancy made up stuff. Keep it simple.

babyshoes

If you make a tomato based sauce for pasta or pizza you can count the tomato as one portion, the onion and garlic as another, and you could make a fruit based dessert. How about something exciting, like chocolate fondue (just microwave a little milk choc and then put the bowl in another bowl containing a little boiling water to keep it melted) with fruit skewers for dipping? Or good old banana custard? Or even a simple trifle with fresh or tinned fruit would count towards one portion.

When we were ill and not wanting to eat, we used to get banana milkshake, made with lots of banana and just a little bit of sugar. If you really want to disguise fruit and veg, try to put it into something that would be a treat, like milkshakes or desserts.

greenbee

If she's not usually offered veg, she may be fine if you just give her the same as what you're having and don't make a big deal out of it. If she sees you eating and enjoying it she might give it a try (I ate everything put in front of me as a child... there was never enough food in the house when we were tiny, so if we hesitate my mum ate it... I didn't think twice - I'd try it and decide afterwards whether I liked it or not!). It might be worth trying the 'don't you want this? If not I'll have it, it's my favourite' routine.

If you're lucky, she'll be fine, and might even start asking her mum for it - but even if she doesn't get plenty of veg at home you'll know you're instilling good habits in her and getting her interested in her food.

It's probably worth making sure that you have something like pasta/pizza sauce with lots of veg in anyway, as it will be delicious and it will mean she gets some veg even if she turns her nose up at it when its offered unadulterated.

The idea of getting her involved in making her food is a great one - if she's interested in it she's more likely to eat it.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

esmf73

Take a leaf out of Charlie and Lola's book. Peas become greendrops from Greenland. Carrots become rockets from Jupiter. Tomatoes become moon squishers etc.

You might find that she will eat the mini veg - so baby tomatoes, little carrots etc because it tastes sweeter. But I just add loads of veg when I do a bolognese and mix it in with the meat and lentils - the kids don't notice it unless I've not cut it up small enough! Blending is the way to go!

Get a childrens cook book which are mostly healthy eating now and perhaps cook something out of that with her - and you could try setting up a mini garden indoors - lettuce perhaps. They say that children are more likely to eat something that they've grown themselves.

Also make the portions you give her small as I understand that some children can be overwhelmed at the amount on their plates and won't eat. She can always have more

amandada

Home made soup's another way of getting loads of veg into them-I usually make it with a combination of potatoes, carrots, onion, butternut squash, sweet potatoes-whatever's in the fridge really! I use a lot of lentils too, to make it almost "fork and knife" soup-perfect meal in a bowl!
You can either cut the veg really finely or liquidise it after cooking. A lot of kids who aren't keen on veg "on a plate" will happily eat soup....and I don't care if veg is disguised, at this age it really is a case of getting it down their neck no matter how!
At 3 she can also be "helping" you with cooking, I've found that involving my children in the cooking makes them a lot more keen to taste their creations and very proud of what they've done.

vatic

Thanks for the replies everyone, lots of food for thought! (sorry :P)

valk_scot: I definitely see what you're saying. No worries though, I'm not trying to undo 3 years of unhealthy eating in one meal, I'm not that ambitious! Just thought might as well get some veg in her tummy while she's here without going overboard. She's stayed the night with us a few times, she and mum come over all the time and she makes herself at home the second she sets foot inside. So it shouldn't be a stressful experience for her.

We also thought about going the "everyone eats the same thing" route because she always wants to eat the food off of everyone else's plate anyway!

I'm going to take the suggestion that a few people said and get her to help out with making the meal. Seriously considering making pasta and cheesy meatballs (she will hoover anything that has cheese in it) with some cooked veg/red split lentils whizzed up in the tomato sauce. Her mum has done homemade meatballs before and the little'un becomes a vulture when she sees them and gobbles them off mummy and daddy's plate!

I can really imagine her loving to roll up the little meat balls and hiding cheese inside of them since she has been obsessed with hiding things and herself pretty much since she was able to crawl around!

Will keep you all updated and thanks for the fabulous suggestions!

nikki2804

I really hope someone can help me.

I've decided that my OH is going on a diet (he accepts that he is a little over weight) as he in reality is bordering on the obese side of the BMI scale. He is about 14.5 stone and 5 ft 7. His ideal weight should be 10/11 stone. As we have a young son I don't want him growing up with a daddy who can't run around and play football with him!

So really I am just looking to see if anyone has any tasty recipes that are low in calories but filling (as even when we have healthyish food he will go back for seconds!) He's also a really picky eater which is why I want to 'hide' the veggies! Funny that, he'll eat them if he can't see them!

He won't eat steak (to much chewing??) peppers, mushrooms, parsnips, cauliflower, cucumber, cold meat.

I hope someone can give me some ideas as I am really at my wits end with him!!

loobyloo2

Maybe you could start each evening meal with a first course of soup, really warming at this time of year, and filling, then not so much main course. The varieties are endless, but you could put veggies in it that he normally wouldn't eat, blitz it up, and he would be non the wiser.