Q: My kids refuse to eat anything green. What should I do?
A: The best advice is don't pressure, bribe, force or reward your child to eat vegetables. This can negatively affect meal time. Consider these options:
1. Involve your child in the food preparation. Read books on food, grocery shop together and visit a pick-your-own farm.
2. Serve food family-style. Let your children choose what foods they are willing to eat.
3. Serve a new vegetable with a familiar one.
4. Keep trying. It can take up to 10 times of serving the food before children will taste it.
5. Be an example. Be a model eating vegetables and enjoying them.
6. Change it up. Use in-season vegetables and prepare them in different ways. Kids generally prefer raw vegetables.
- Britta Rusk, RD and certified diabetes educator at T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital