Why won't they eat their vegetables?

Ideas on ways to increase your kid’s vegetable intake:

• Try char-grilling vegetables such as zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, and capsicum under the grill. Simply brush the vegetables with olive oil and bake for 20 minutes. They taste amazing. These types of vegetables can also be added to sandwiches or foccacias as great lunch fillers.
• If your children hate all cooked vegetables, remember that vegetables can also be replaced with salad. Salad can be added to most meals but goes exceptionally well with pasta and meat dishes. Look out for the low-fat salad dressings including mayonnaise that are available in supermarkets and add extra flavor to a range of salads. Alternatively make it your child's job to make the salad.
• An excellent after-school snack can be made from cut up raw vegetables such as carrot, capsicum, and celery teamed with low fat dips that are available in supermarkets. Baby tomatoes, cucumber sticks, sliced carrot, mushrooms, beetroot wedges are all colorful and look appealing on a plate.
• Try adding small, chopped pieces of tomato, capsicum, zucchini and carrots to dishes such as spaghetti bolognaise, stir fried rice or sauces. These vegetables do not have much flavor and only very determined children will pick out all the pieces.
• Add tomato, mushroom, eggplant, onion, capsicum and tomato to homemade pizzas. Try involving your child in decorating their own pizzas. Children are more likely to eat foods they have had some role in making.
• Look for low-fat sauces to serve with vegetables — such as cheese based sauce or gravy, which can give vegetables extra flavor.
• Tomato goes well with everything. Try it with cheese or vegemite on toast or crackers.
• When making cakes or slices look for varieties that include different types of vegetables. Zucchini bread, pumpkin scones and carrot cake are all good choices.
• Grated carrots and zucchini can be added to salmon or vegetable patties and served with a side salad.
• Young children will often eat frozen peas while dinner is being prepared.
• If you have kids complaining of being hungry before dinner, leave out fresh, chopped carrots, celery, cucumber and capsicum. You will be surprised how much they will eat when they are hungry and these vegetables are fresh and readily available.

Validated science is at the heart of every Mannatech product. Since introducing their first nutritional breakthrough, Ambrotose® complex, in 1994, Mannatech has maintained a leadership position in the worldwide dietary supplements industry. Mannatech offers naturally derived patent-pending and proprietary nutritional products that no other company can offer.