I’ve been duped.
For years, I’ve read that if only parents would expose kids to more vegetables, they would eat them and like them. Veggies would be as desirable as candy, chips, and fast food. I’ve lamented my failure to present my own kids with enough healthy choices during their most impressionable years. That must explain why, as teenagers, they spend their hard-earned money on fast food when I’m not looking (I see those colorful wrappers and soda cups in the trash—I’m totally on to them!). If only I’d made more home cooked dinners in the early days! If only I’d filled their toddler plates more often with broccoli puree and rutabaga cubes! Then they would surely prefer carrots to French fries and Brussels sprouts to burgers.
It was a lie—at least, partially.
Every time I feed my granddaughter, I fill her plate with healthy foods: benign, lovely things like blueberries, sweet potato fries, carrot/pear puree, and tiny bits of avocado. Every time, with every food—even fruit!—she unceremoniously turns up her nose and pushes the plate away, as if she has been deeply offended by the mere suggestion of foods other than grilled cheese or plain quesadillas. She won’t even try a bite. She won’t even let a bite get near her. Mealtime is the context in which she learned how to assert herself with her favorite word: “uh-uh,” accompanied by a head shake (seriously, what kid doesn’t like fruit?). Now that I have a chance to make an early impact, I’m realizing that exposure isn’t everything, as my granddaughter has proven to me too many times.
This got me thinking: if a preference for healthy foods isn’t as simple as exposure (even repeated exposure—forget that “seven tastes and they will like it” theory when a child won’t even try something once), then what’s the trick? What might inspire a child to be a little more adventurous, and start to develop that broader palate we all hope for in our children?
I think “fun” is the trick. I think the answer is to take a little more time to make the good food, the real food, more fun. Why does fast food get the reputation as the “fun” food? What’s so fun about chemicals and fake ingredients? It’s backwards, and I think we can do something about it, but we have to go further than offering a vegetable and hoping for the best. Children might not think they like squash or spinach, but if vegetables weren’t so darned serious, if eating healthful food actually meant having a good time, then kids might be more inspired to take a taste, and one taste might lead to another, and another.
Here are ten ideas for making food fun
1. Make babies.
Baby vegetables are cuter, sweeter, and less intimidating than “grown-up” vegetables. Baby peas, baby beets, real baby carrots (the kind with greenery attached), baby (new) potatoes, baby Brussels sprouts, and baby greens look like they were made for kids. Offer veggies with the “baby” prefix and kids might give them a try, if only out of solidarity (little things need to stick together!).
2. Add butter.
At least to kids, who are more sensitive to bitter tastes, most vegetables taste better with butter and a dash of salt, or even a sprinkle of cheese. When you offer “buttery beans” or “cheesy broccoli,” formerly suspicious foods can feel more familiar and approachable.
3. Let your food touch.
Some kids don’t want their food to touch, but don’t assume anything. Just the other day, I fried up some bacon and scrambled it with eggs and some chopped onions and spinach leaves. I topped it all with cheese, and guess what who ventured a few bites? (I pretended not to notice.)
4. Pilfer from pop culture.
Bright yellow summer squash might take on the name of a certain square yellow fellow of cartoon fame. Your kids love a particular pop star? Apply his or her name—Randy Kaplan carrots, anyone? Raffi red cabbage? In our house, a certain children’s show featuring British aliens in red, blue, yellow, and green suits used to inspire the names of wholegrain toast with fruit faces and homemade strawberry custard.
5. Use humor.
Who says food can’t be funny? A study from Cornell University demonstrated that kids are much more likely to help themselves to veggies if they have humorous names, like X-ray Vision Carrots, Silly Dilly Green Beans, or Power Punch Broccoli (vegetables with silly names had double the takers in the study).
6. Get artistic.
Make a plate into a “portrait” of your child made from vegetables (radish slices for eyes, a strip of yellow bell pepper or a nose, a tomato wedge for a smile, sprouts for hair?). What about a miniature nature scene with broccoli florets for trees over a bed of lettuce leaf “grass” with bits of shredded beets and red cabbage for flowers and a path of cucumber slices??
7. Go raw.
Roasting and stir-frying may make vegetables more appealing to grown-ups, but a lot of children prefer vegetables raw. Go beyond the old standards like carrots and celery. Try purple cauliflower florets, multi-colored bell pepper strips, cucumber half-moons, mild breakfast radishes, kohlrabi cut into sticks, shredded beets, and small tomatoes speared with toothpicks (different varieties come in yellow, orange, and green). A few raw veggies on the side in place of chips or fries might inspire some experimental crunching.
8. Get dippy.
As long as you’ve got out the raw vegetables, add something to dip them in. Dipping is fun! Ranch dressing is the old standby, but also try hummus, guacamole, mild salsa, French onion dip, even peanut butter. Or make your own in a rainbow of colors by mixing sour cream and sea salt with different vegetable purees (beets for pink, spinach for green, pumpkin for orange).
9. Play games.
The Tasting Game is fun and encourages bravery in the face of palate teasing. At snack time, cover your child’s eyes and feed her small bites of different foods. Her job is to guess what they are. Kids get so distracted by the guessing, they forget to notice they are eating foods they might push away at the table. As kids get older make the guessing game harder. String beans: yellow, green, or purple? Bell peppers: green, purple, red, or orange? Tomatoes: red, orange, yellow, or green?
10. Make it an event.
Healthful foods can be an adventure. Steam an artichoke, put out individual bowls of lemon butter, and make a family ritual out of pulling off the leaves and sliding them through your teeth, then peeling and cutting the heart and dividing it up between everyone. Who can collect the biggest pile of leaves? Grow cherry tomatoes in a planter or green peas on a trellis, then harvest the veggies with your child. Put on some calypso music and crack open a coconut together. Share the water and chunks of coconut meat. Take a weekly family field trip to the co-op and farmer’s market and let each child choose a veggie to serve with dinner. These are the traditions your children will remember, and the fun will rub off on your child’s perception of healthful food.
We all get rushed and life is busy, but if we take time for anything, it should be to bring more joy to the table. There’s nothing inherently serious about vegetables and other healthful foods, so slow down, get creative, and lighten up. Good eating really can be fun!
This forest green, deeply ribbed squash resembles its namesake, the acorn. It has yellow-orange flesh and a tender-firm texture that holds up when cooked. Acorn’s mild flavor is versatile, making it a traditional choice for stuffing and baking. The hard rind is not good for eating, but helps the squash hold its shape when baked.
Good for feeding a crowd, these huge, bumpy textured squash look a bit like a giant gray lemon, tapered at both ends and round in the middle. A common heirloom variety, Blue Hubbard has an unusual, brittle blue-gray outer shell, a green rind, and bright orange flesh. Unlike many other winter squashes, they are only mildly sweet, but have a buttery, nutty flavor and a flaky, dry texture similar to a baked potato.
These squash are named for their peanut-like shape and smooth, beige coloring. Butternut is a good choice for recipes calling for a large amount of squash because they are dense—the seed cavity is in the small bulb opposite the stem end, so the large stem is solid squash. Their vivid orange flesh is sweet and slightly nutty with a smooth texture that falls apart as it cooks. Although the rind is edible, butternut is usually peeled before use.
This oblong squash is butter yellow in color with green mottled striping in shallow ridges. Delicata has a thin, edible skin that is easy to work with but makes it a poor squash for long-term storage; this is why you’ll only find them in the fall. The rich, sweet yellow flesh is flavorful and tastes like chestnuts, corn, and sweet potatoes.
These colorful, festive varieties of squash are all hybrids resulting from a cross between Sweet Dumpling and Acorn, and are somewhere between the two in size. Yellow or cream with green and orange mottling, these three can be difficult to tell apart, but for culinary purposes, they are essentially interchangeable. With a sweet nutty flavor like Dumpling, and a tender-firm texture like Acorn, they are the best of both parent varieties.
Kabocha can be dark green with mottled blue-gray striping, or a deep red-orange color that resembles Red Kuri. You can tell the difference between red Kabocha and Red Kuri by their shape: Kabocha is round but flattened at stem end, instead of pointed. The flesh is smooth, dense, and intensely yellow. They are similar in sweetness and texture to a sweet potato.
Pie pumpkins differ from larger carving pumpkins in that they have been bred for sweetness and not for size. They are uniformly orange and round with an inedible rind, and are sold alongside other varieties of winter squash (unlike carving pumpkins which are usually displayed separately from winter squash). These squash are mildly sweet and have a rich pumpkin flavor that is perfect for pies and baked goods. They make a beautiful centerpiece when hollowed out and filled with pumpkin soup.
These vivid orange, beta carotene-saturated squash are shaped like an onion, or teardrop. They have a delicious chestnut-like flavor, and are mildly sweet with a dense texture that holds shape when steamed or cubed, but smooth and velvety when pureed, making them quite versatile.
These football-sized, bright yellow squash are very different from other varieties in this family. Spaghetti squash has a pale golden interior, and is stringy and dense—in a good way! After sliced in half and baked, use a fork to pry up the strands of flesh and you will see it resembles and has the texture of perfectly cooked spaghetti noodles. These squash are not particularly sweet but have a mild flavor that takes to a wide variety of preparations.
These small, four- to-six-inch round squash are cream-colored with green mottled streaks and deep ribs similar to Acorn. Pale gold on the inside, with a dry, starchy flesh similar to a potato, these squash are renowned for their rich, honey-sweet flavor.
At some food co-ops, farmer’s markets, and apple orchards in the fall you may encounter unusual heirloom varieties of squash that are worth trying. If you like butternut, look for Galeux D’eysines, a rich, sweet and velvety French heirloom that is large, pale pink, and covered in brown fibrous warts. You might also like to try Long Island Cheese squash, a flat, round ribbed, beige squash that resembles a large wheel of artisan cheese. If you prefer the firmer, milder Acorn, you might like to try long Banana or Pink Banana squash. If you like a moist,dense textured squash (yam-like), try a Queensland Blue or Jarrahdale pumpkin. These huge varieties are from Australia and New Zealand, respectively, and have stunning brittle blue-green rinds and deep orange flesh. Both are good for mashing and roasting.
