A new study from Penn State University indicates that sneaking vegetables into kids' meals is a valid part of your overall healthy eating plan. As part of their study, researchers came up with two pasta dishes to test on children. A low calorie dish with broccoli and cauliflower blended into the sauce and another with no vegetables and more calories.Kids didn't spot the vitamin-packed ringer, liking both equally well. "The kids could not really tell the difference and ate a consistent weight of pasta," according to lead author Kathleen E. Leahy. Leahy did point out, however, that this should only be a part of your meal strategy -- children should be encouraged to eat whole vegetables in order to develop a taste for them. "You not only want to increase their vegetable intake but also want to ensure that your kids will acquire a taste for vegetables," she said.
Luckily, this isn't an issue in our house -- Jared and Sara like veggies as much as anything else (except maybe ice cream). Still, this might come in handy if their tastes ever change.
1. I'm a firm believer that if you start them when they are babies on jarred veggies and continue on from there you should have no problem getting your kids to eat them. As long as you don't force them to eat something they don't like and give a positive YUMM with every bite.
My daughter's first jarred veggie was sweet potato...she still loves them to this day.. There really isn't a veggie she won't eat, she will even eat spinnich and loves it!
Posted at 11:19AM on May 5th 2007 by Clarissa