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My fussy eater does not love vegetables – what can I do?

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My fussy eater does not love vegetables – what can I do?

When I tell parents I’m a Picky Eating Advisor, we often move pretty quickly onto the vegetable challenge! Most fussy eaters are not fond of veggies and there are some logical reasons why:

– Bitter. Young children are programmed to enjoy sweet foods. Breast milk is quite sweet. Many veggies are more bitter.

– Texture. Vegetables can be challenging texturally – they are frequently mushy or even slimy.

– Inconsistency. It’s harder to contemplate something that is variable. A cracker always looks, feels, and tastes the same. Veggies are more likely to be different each time you encounter them. Even carrots, for example, can vary enormously in taste, texture, and sweetness.

Veggies are also ‘emotionally charged’. Parents are bombarded with advertising telling them how important it is that a child eats x portions of this and y portions of that.

Eating variety and a range of nutrients is ideal, but it also puts a lot of pressure on parents, and can mean an emotional rollercoaster when your child is not eating according to convention.

In turn, your child will often pick up on the emotion, which makes saying no twice as fun. The more invested you are in something, the more you can inadvertently set up a power struggle.

Do you want them to eat veggies? Although the answer is invariably yes, it may be a long-term proposition. This is especially true for children who are really uncomfortable around food in general.

Looking at this as a long-term project rather than a quick fix can be a positive way to approach food and feeding. So, let’s look at strategies that build competence around food in general and veggies specifically:

Ways to help your child love vegetables

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1. Familiarity. The more often you see a food, the more comfortable you become with it. And yes, I appreciate you may feel like you’ve had the tomatoes on the table for years with no progress!

However, if I had to pick one of the biggest pitfalls, I see for parents supporting children to eat variety, it would be lack of consistency and not persevering as they are not seeing the results, they feel they should see.

Part of this is how you conceptualise ‘result’. ‘Result’ normally equals eating, but that’s not the whole picture. The more fussy a child, the more comfortable they will need to become with a food before being able to have a taste.

If you only focus on eating you continually see ‘failure’, when in fact you may be making enormous progress as your child is becoming more and more comfortable with a food and building up to that first taste.

The more picky, the longer it may take, but this is a long-term project and if what you do makes a difference for your child it seems absolutely worth doing.

2. Model. Veggie eating parents produce vegetable eating children. I know this is something you have heard over and over and may feel sceptical about as it does not seem to be working! Trust me on this, seeing you eat with pleasure is critical.

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Whenever you get chance, role-model eating veggies joyfully. Are the veg there at snack time? Grab a baton of carrot and a cherry tomato and eat with delight. At dinner are you eating with your children or are you hiding your veg away until after they are in bed? I know a lot of veggie hiding parents 😉

3. Make them appealing. My mother did the typically English thing for her generation and cooked veggies until they were mushy and limp (bleurgh). I still struggle to eat some of the ‘steamed’ veggies she prepares, and I love greens!

Think texture and what will appeal to your child. For those who love pouches, it may be soft and smooth. For others it could be dry and crunchy.

Adding salt, butter, cheese, or ketchup, for example, may make veg more appealing. If it’s half a pea in an ocean of ketchup I’d take that as a win 😉 To build confidence and comfort may take time and could take an ongoing crutch like a sauce or a dip, and that’s okay.

4. Create interest. Passively serving veggies is an every day action and one that does help over time. However, interest and interaction takes it up a notch and will definitely support progress.

Often doing this away from the table or in a low-pressure environment makes it into a fun experience rather than one where your child feels they are in the spotlight.

You can do this as part of routines when shopping, cooking, prepping, and serving, or you can create opportunities to pay more attention to and interact with foods. Perhaps this is loading up skewers with veggies or making faces, for example.

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5. Change them up. Prepping, cooking, or serving veggies differently can be really supportive. Think of the difference between mash, boiled potatoes, jackets, or fries. All are potatoes, but they seem like completely different foods.

My eldest refused pumpkin for years and then one weekend we were at The Food Show, and he scoffed a bowl of pumpkin soup and declared it delicious. He still loves the soup, but done the ‘Simon Gault’ way with Indian spices.

There are multiple ways to serve veggies and perhaps one of them is more appealing for your child. For example, thinly sliced and crispy roasted veg may tick boxes that raw or steamed ones don’t.

6. Anytime is good. Parents often think of dinner when thinking of veggies. I advise that you serve them throughout the day. It can make dinner seem less pressured for both you and them, if the opportunity to eat veggies is presented throughout the day.

In fact, I generally feel snacks are better teaching times than dinners. Dinners are late and we’re all tired by then. Snacks tend to have a better rep, so using these to introduce veggies can be great.

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7. Small portions. The smaller it is, the easier it is to contemplate. One pea is more manageable than a plate of broccoli. Paring things right back can be really helpful.

8. Sweetness. There are veggies that many picky eaters are comfortable with like carrots and corn.

Perhaps part of this is because they are naturally sweeter. You can use this to your advantage and either increase the sweetness eg. honey roasted carrots. Or add sweetness to other veg.

9. Incorporate veggies. I’m not a fan of hiding – at all – but for many fussy eaters, incorporating veggies into other foods with their knowledge is far easier than eating veg on their own.

Although you want your child to eat individual vegetables willingly, if you start by grating them into a mince dish, for example, they are still getting the nutrients and the flavour. You are also teaching them that dishes with veggies in taste nice.

Perhaps starting with beetroot in chocolate cake or zucchini in muffins (with no skin if green is a challenge) is a better starting point for some children.

10. Drink them. Fussy eaters often find drinking easier than eating. If this is your child, then possibly it’s a way to get some or more veggies rolling.

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Smoothies that incorporate veggies are one way to start. Perhaps it’s a neutral coloured and tasting one like steamed cauliflower to start, that just disappears into a drink.

Or maybe if fruit juice is accepted you can move to a V-8 type juice (maybe a mixture to begin with) to start the process.

If your child is eating no veggies at all, it will probably take time and a lot of patience to support them to take the first steps. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it worth it? I’ll leave that for you to decide 😊

Remember, as much as you would love your child to happily tuck into veggies, and I believe it’s a great thing to teach them, fruit has many of the same nutrients. If your child munches on a range of different fruits, they will be getting much of the same fibre and vitamins as they would eating veg.

However, if you’d like support helping your child to love vegetables beyond this very brief overview, please feel free to get in contact.

Judith, MA Cantab (Cambridge University), MSc Psychology (first-class honours), is working on a PhD, is an AOTA accredited picky eating advisor and internationally certified nutritional therapist. She works with 100+ families every year resolving fussy eating and returning pleasure and joy to the meal table.

She is also mum to two boys and the author of Creating Confident Eaters and Winner Winner I Eat Dinner. Her dream is that every child can approach food from a place of safety and joy, not fear.

Learn more about Judith here: https://theconfidenteater.com/about/

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