Key Takeaways:
- It can take time and many exposures to vegetables before your children accept and enjoy them.
- Offer vegetables without any pressure, bribes, or rewards – these tactics can backfire in the long term.
- Serving vegetables in different ways, getting kids involved in choosing and preparing the vegetables they want to eat and being a good role model can all help encourage children to eat more of them.
As adults, we understand that vegetables are important for our health. They’re packed with fibre, vitamins and minerals, and antioxidants that support our overall well-being and help reduce the risk of disease. Both Canadian and American dietary guidelines recommend filling half our plates with fruits and vegetables at every meal. It’s no surprise that, as a parent, it can feel frustrating—or even stressful—when your child doesn’t eat enough of them or refuses them altogether.
However, the good news is that there are plenty of strategies that can help your child eat more vegetables—no bribing, rewarding, or coaxing required! In fact, those things can often backfire.
In this article, we’ll offer eight tips to help encourage your children to eat more vegetables.
1. Help Kids Enjoy the Taste of Vegetables
It may sound obvious, but kids are more likely to eat vegetables when they enjoy the taste of them. Some vegetables have a naturally bitter flavor, while children tend to prefer sweeter tastes. To make veggies more appealing, serve them with a dip your child enjoys, such as hummus, tzatziki, or ranch.
Cooking methods also make a big difference. Roasting vegetables brings out their natural sweetness. If you are steaming or sautéing, pairing them with a seasoning or sauce adds a great flavour boost. Think cheese sauce on broccoli or a mild honey-garlic glaze on stir-fried veggies. After all, most adults don’t enjoy plain, unseasoned vegetables—so it’s only fair to make them tasty for kids, too.
Try this Chicken Fajita Sheet Pan Dinner —it combines roasted potatoes, chicken, and bell peppers with a kid-friendly fajita-style seasoning that makes the whole dish flavourful. You can use any variety of Little Potatoes you want, but we think Little Trios™ brings an extra pop of color!
2. Let Kids See You Eating and Enjoying Veggies
As a parent, you play a powerful role in shaping your children’s eating habits. When kids see their parents choosing and enjoying a variety of healthy foods, including vegetables, they’re more likely to try and accept these foods themselves. Preparing and enjoying colorful and veggie-forward recipes at the dinner table not only makes dinner more fun but also helps children develop lifelong healthy eating habits.
3. Get Kids Involved With Veggie Selection and Preparation
Children are more likely to eat food that they helped pick out and prepare. Bring kids to the grocery store and have them pick out a vegetable they’d like to try. At home, young children (ages 2 to 3) can help wash vegetables. For older children, they may even be able to cut vegetables (with adult supervision and a child-safe knife) or have them snap off florets of broccoli or cauliflower.
Try these Plant-Based Potato Tostadas – they have colorful toppings like avocado, tomatoes and lettuce. Kids can help prepare the lettuce by washing, drying, and tearing it, and everyone in the family can assemble their own tostada.
4. Serve Vegetables When Kids Are Most Hungry
Kids are more likely to eat vegetables when they are hungry. Food tends to taste better when you are hungry, so it’s a perfect time to offer healthy options. If your kids are asking for a snack while you’re making dinner, try setting out a plate of cut-up veggies and say, “Dinner will be ready soon, but here are some vegetables to snack on until then”. As a mom of three, I do this often—and that veggie plate disappears in no time!
5. Give Vegetables Fun and Creative Names
Sometimes, all it takes to get kids interested in vegetables is a little imagination. Calling broccoli ‘tiny tree tops,’ carrot sticks ‘crunchy wands’ and cauliflower ‘cloud bites’ can make them more appealing and encourage kids to try them. You can even get your children involved in the naming process to make mealtimes more fun and interactive.
6. Don’t Offer Bribes or Rewards for Eating Vegetables
Phrases like “finish your broccoli if you want dessert” or “have two more bites of carrots and I’ll let you watch tv” are examples of bribes and rewards that may work in the short-term but are not sustainable. If you grew up hearing things like this, you might still avoid a particular vegetable because it was tied to pressure or negotiation rather than enjoyment.
Bribes and rewards lead children to think that eating vegetables is somewhat of a punishment or chore, and dessert is a prize to be earned. This dynamic puts desserts on a pedestal and casts healthy food in a negative light. Instead, we want children to develop a balanced and healthy relationship with food by viewing all foods equally and neutrally – that includes both vegetables and desserts. When dessert becomes a reward, vegetables can feel like a barrier, leading to long-term resistance rather than healthy habits.
7. Add Vegetables to Preferred Foods—But Don’t Hide or Sneak Them In
Incorporating less familiar or less preferred vegetables into foods your child already enjoys can increase the chances they’ll eat them. For example, if your child loves macaroni and cheese, try mixing in some chopped broccoli—you might be surprised at what they’ll try when it’s paired with a favorite dish.
Another great example? This Instant Pot Taco Soup. It combines kid-approved flavours like potatoes and tacos with a variety of vegetables in a one-pot meal.
While it might seem like an easy solution to sneak or hide vegetables in some of your kids’ favourite foods, it’s important that kids know the vegetables are there. This helps them learn to accept and eventually enjoy them. Hiding vegetables might backfire if your child discovers them—they may feel tricked, which can lead to distrust and resistance to trying new foods in the future. Instead, aim to build a positive, trusting environment around eating.
8. Avoid Stating the Benefits of Eating Vegetables
When offering vegetables to young children, avoid saying things like “try this spinach, it will make you strong” or “these carrots will make you smarter.” Research has shown that these phrases backfire. When vegetables were presented to kids with an instrumental benefit, such as making them stronger or smarter, children actually ate less of them compared to when they are presented as “tasty.” Children are likely to think that if a food is going to have a particular benefit, it might mean that it doesn’t taste good.(1)
When offering vegetables to children, describe them as tasty, crunchy, sweet, or juicy and see if it helps encourage them to try them.
It can take time and multiple exposures to vegetables before a child learns to accept and enjoy them. Keep offering vegetables to your children daily, without pressure, bribes, or rewards, and aim to create a positive eating environment to support their willingness to try new foods. Building healthy habits takes time, patience, and consistency. Keep at it – you’ve got this!
I really love this article! There are so many examples and I especially love the advice around not turning it into a bribe or reward-based system!
References:
- Michal Maimaran, Ayelet Fishbach, If It’s Useful and You Know It, Do You Eat? Preschoolers Refrain from Instrumental Food, Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 41, Issue 3, 1 October 2014, Pages 642–655, https://doi.org/10.1086/677224
