Many children today don’t get the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables they need on a daily basis. If your children are between 2 and 6, it is recommended that they get 3 servings of veggies and 2 servings of fruit a day. If they are over 6, they should be getting between 3 and 5 servings of veggies a day and 2 to 4 servings of fruit. (Adults are recommended to eat at least 5 a day of each) But with the fast food culture, and many children fixed on chicken nuggets, hot dogs and mac and cheese, how do you get them to get to the recommended amount?

VEGGIES – While I’m blessed with one kid who will eat pretty much anything I put in front of her, my son is turning out to be a little bit of a challenge with vegetables. Here’s some tips that might get them to their daily quota:

1. I’m all about sneaky cooking. Look, I’m the one cooking the food, so if I happen to put in some pureed veggies, so be it. Many times you can’t tell at all. Here’s some of my favorites…

a. Cauliflower in mashed potatoes – you seriously can’t taste them and some of the benefits include improved heart health, reduced risk of strokes, strengthens the immune system, helps maintain a healthy cholesterol level, aids in cell growth and replication, and an excellent source of fiber.

b. Carrots in meatloaf or meatballs – Again, you can’t taste these and the color of the meatloaf usually hides the carrots quite well. Carrots can give you improved appearance of the skin, hair and nails, can lower cholesterol and blood pressure, has a strong antioxidant that can prevent cancer, can help prevent bodily infections and is claimed to be valuable for the adrenal glands, help improve eyesight, can regulate blood sugar and contains a great source of fiber.

c. Sweet Potatoes in Mac N’ Cheese – (This will only work if you make it from scratch and not out of a box…) This actually sweetens the Mac N’ Cheese, making it a way sweet treat for your kids, plus you can’t see it at all in the sauce. Sweet Potatoes are a Super Food, giving you a low-fat source of vitamin E, contributes to heart health, is a good source of dietary antioxidants, helps to regulate high blood pressure, helps anemia and may also protect against inflammatory conditions.

2. Another trick you might try is to serve your kids the veggies first. At dinner time my family is starving, so putting something on their plate a few minutes before the main course hits the table usually ensures that some of those veggies will be eaten before dinner.

3. One last thought on veggies is that V8 has a vegetable juice out, V8 Fusion, which I recently tried after seeing those funny commercials. This one inparticular made me laugh because I hate, and I mean HATE tomato juice and I’m one of those people who take the veggies off of everything I eat, burgers, mexican food, you name it, so this commercial hit home for me. Anyhow, I tried this stuff and it straight rocks! It’s actually a treat for me and for the kids (but they don’t know it’s a full serving of veggies!).

FRUIT- Most kids will eat fruit, that is because they are naturally sweet and juicy. If you can’t get your kids to eat fruit, you can hide it too, but in different ways:

1. Bake – I know, it sounds way to easy, but you can use applesauce (which is apples people) as the oil substitute in muffins. That’s one serving, then add any kind of fruit you want, blueberries, peaches, even bananas (there’s serving 2)

2. Mix it with cereal – Some kids like this, some don’t. I puree strawberries or peaches to put into their oatmeal, makes it sweet and a great way to serve some fruit. You can also put raisins or blueberries into pretty much any cereal and that’s a great way to up their fruit intake.

3. Snacks – We don’t have any sugar snacks at our house, but we do have grapes, apples, oranges, raisins, peaches, kiwi fruit, cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, raspberries, you name it. That’s their snack, they don’t have an option of sugar snacks.

A last thought on fruit, fruit has fructose in it, it’s what makes fruit sweet. It’s natures sugar, so don’t add to much table sugar into dishes with fruit, as it’s already sweet.

Any tips for getting kids to eat their fruits and veggies?? Let me know, I’d love to hear it!

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