While I think it’s important to teach my kids to be honest, when it comes to getting them to eat vegetables, all stay-at-home dad bets are off! For most us, our biggest struggles with our kids happen when we try to get them to eat healthier foods like vegetables.
Here are some super sneaky ways to get your kids to eat their veggies:
When you have your stay-at-home-dad chef’s hat on, include vegetables in ways that your kids won’t notice. For example, serve them carrot bread or pumpkin pie. Keep your emphasis on the bread and pie aspect and not on the vegetables!
Make vegetables look funny! Use toothpicks to build veggies statues. Your kids will have fun eating them apart. You as a stay-at-home dad should set the example and eat your own veggie monster as well.
You can also do things like make salad faces and eat them piece by piece.
Or pretend to be a rabbit and eat your salad with your hands. Your kids will be amazed to see their Daddy telling them that it’s O.K. not to eat with a fork just this once.
Serve delicious dips with your veggies. Your kids won’t notice as much if they’re eating vegetables with a delicious tasting dip. It makes eating fun. And it’s easy for a stay-at-home dad to make great veggie dips . . . check online for recipes.
Homemade pizza is a sneaky way to get vegetables in. You can create things like Daddy Pizza. Have your kids choose what kind of topping they’d like on their pizzas and let them put their own veggies on it.
Make fun finger foods like tacos together. Have your kids chop the veggies and they may not even notice that they’re eating vegetables.
Stir-fry meals are fun to cook and are be fun to serve. Things like snow peas can become vitamins for giants. Put on your stay-at-home dad thinking cap and come up with creative ideas for renaming our vegetables. For example, broccoli can be teeny-tiny trees!
Colorful soups disguise the vegetables that your kid may not want to eat. Boil vegetables like carrots and red and yellow peppers until their skins are soft. Put the vegetables in a blender and then season to taste. You may not want to call attention to the vegetables by calling it stay-at-home-vegetable soup or anything like that!
A lot of meat and pasta dishes create opportunities to sneak vegetables in sideways. Chop veggies finely and put them into your lasagna. As long as you put a lot of cheese on top, your kids probably won’t notice. And these are easy dishes for a stay-at-home dad to prepare.
Dishes like meatloaf are perfect for grating vegetables into the mix. That way, they won’t be as noticeable either.
While all of these tips may not be 100% failsafe, it is important to try them out and see what flies. Feel free to put your special and specific stay-at-home dad touch to these ideas and create your own as well. The key is for you to make eating veggies fun for your kids.
Bon appétit
Reference: http://BusinessTM.com/about/erik-cornella/
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