Adventures in Cooking for Kids

I'm always looking for ways to get my kids to eat healthy. My 6-year-old has always been good about eating fruits and veggies without arguing. My 2-year-old would live off bread products and cheese if I let him. He doesn't really dislike fruits and veggies, but he won't willingly eat them.

What can you do?

I've looked up new ways to get my kids to eat healthy foods. One being to hide veggies inside stuff I know they like. So mac and cheese now has carrots, celery, and onions pureed into the cheese sauce.

I try getting the kids involved in cooking, but that hasn't helped them expand their horizons. They usually just get full from eating off the cutting board. 

Lately, I've looked at other theories. These include The Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious, which are cookbooks with puree blends and recipes for normal kid foods you can mix those in. I think these have some good ideas and are a great start. My one complaint is that they do give in a little bit more than I am willing to and mix in these pureed foods with things like Spaghetti Os.

Another theory I was introduced to this week was by Ellyn Satter. She has some great ideas, I think, although I was at first tempted to say, "Not a chance." For 11- to 36-months old, her recommendations are to sit down and eat with your child for three meals a day, and offer two sit-down snacks in between. Let me get this straight, you want me to prepare food and sit down with a 2-year-old, five times a day? I appreciate the sentiment, but that's not happening.

However, she did have a lot of good advice that I try to follow and some that I need to really get better about.

• Only fix one meal. Don't prepare separate meals for every picky eater. 
• Have foods that you know your kids like along with some new foods.
• Don't force them to eat. They have the option to eat nothing.
• Stick to a schedule. Don't go and feed them snacks when they're hungry because they didn't eat the meal you prepared.

What I've adopted 

I've adopted a mix of these ideas. I hide veggies into things I know they like, not only for their health, but also because it's easier than cooking a bunch of veggies as sides. Although, I almost never manage to sit down for breakfast or lunch with my kids, we do have dinner together, and only one meal is offered. The only time I cook something separate for the kids is when I'm trying a new recipe that I feel sure they won't like.


What do you do to engage your picky eaters? How do you get your kids to branch out and try new foods?