Getting your Toddler to Eat Healthy Food

Getting your Toddler to eat healthy and nutritious food can be hard! Disguising vegetables for toddlers and kids in muffins, smoothies and sauces is a good way to get extra nutricion into Toddler meals.

Kids are extremely visual and imaginative so another good tactic is to make mealtimes fun!  When fruit and veggies seem fun, you can hide them in plain sight! Kids are extremely visual and imaginative, so parents should use this to their advantage during meal time as a means of getting kids and toddlers to eat vegetables.

Disguising vegetables into your Toddler's diet

Disguising vegetables is a great way to add some extra nutrition to your Toddler’s meals. Here are some ideas to add more goodness to your Toddler's diet without them knowing!

• Add some grated carrot and zucchini, broccoli or mushrooms to bolognese sauce.
• Add vegetables like peas, corn, diced celery, finely chopped broccoli, or grated pumpkin or carrot to meatballs or burger.
• Blending veggies in a smoothie with fruit and/or yogurt  - start with a 3:1 ratio of fruits to vegetables to avoid overloading with veggies and sacrificing taste. 

Make Mealtimes Fun

For kids, snack time seems to be all the time so this can be a good opportunity to get creative and hide fruit and veggies in plain sight! Here are some easy ways to present raw food to your fussy eater!

• Make a fruit rainbow using seasonal fruits such as strawberries, pineapple, watermelon, kiwifruit, red grapes, oranges, bananas, rockmelon, and blueberries. 
• Turn a simple pita bread into a fun Mr Vegie face by arranging vegetables such as carrot, mushroom, capsucum and brocoli to make eyes, nose, mouth and ears.
• Mashed potato can be ‘potato glue’ that other vegetables love sticking to. Let kids dip spoons of mash into piles of peas, corn, diced carrot and other veggies.
• Serve homemade soup full of goodness with toast ‘soldiers’ for dunking.

Lead by Example

Getting kids to eat vegetables shouldn’t be a chore. The best thing to do is to lead by example. Toddler's are like little shadows, and they are constantly learning from their parents and caregivers. This includes meal time! If they see you eating a variety of veggies, chances are they will eventually try them too.

Finally, if you’re struggling with ways to get toddlers to eat veggies don’t get discouraged. Try not to force or make a big deal about vegetables at mealtime, and just keep offering. It’s important for kids to learn that vegetables are just another food.