Children are constantly deciding what they do and don’t like, and sometimes, much to the dismay of parents, they make up their minds before they even taste the food. A common area of struggle between parents and children is acceptance of fruits and vegetables.
With a variation of color these foods provide many health benefits including healthier hearts, lower risk of some cancers, better memory function, strong bones and teeth, good vision, and healthy urinary tracts. Yet, studies show children ages 2 to 5 years miss out on these health benefits because only 45% eat the recommended minimum of fruits and only 29% eat the recommended minimum of vegetables.
Snack time is a perfect time to introduce fruits and vegetables. It is often a more relaxed time for families than meal time for introducing new foods. Children need to gain familiarity with foods to accept them. Begin by having them help at the store to put foods into the cart and then at home to store foods away in the kitchen.
When introducing a new food engage your child’s 5 senses. Ask what they see as they look at a new food. Relate the color of the food to other items they are familiar with (foods or non-food items).
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Take time to Touch the new food and to talk about what it feels like. Is it hard, soft, wet, dry, etc?
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Smell the food. Does it smell sweet, strong, or mild?
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Listen to the sound of the food as you cut it. Is the sound loud, soft, crunchy?
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Finally engage the last of the five senses and Taste the food. Is it sweet, sour, salty, or bitter?
It also helps to involve children in preparing foods. A simple snack that can introduce many different fruits is fruit pizza. Start with one low-fat graham cracker. Let your child spread it with low-fat whipped cream cheese. Then top the pizza with different colors of fruit. Kiwi chunks, blueberries and strawberry slices make a nice color combination. The blueberries and strawberries can be fresh or frozen. Vary the fruits and color combinations on the pizza each time you make it. Even pieces of canned fruit can be used.
Children love to use their imaginations. You may be surprised to learn that they will eat cabbage if it is presented in the right way. Read a book about birds, or take a walk and look for birds’ nests in trees. Then make a birds nest salad from green twigs (shredded green cabbage), red twigs (shredded red cabbage), and orange twigs (shredded carrots). Remember not to call the food cabbage or carrots, but by what you are pretending it is. Let your child stir the twigs together in a bowl to make the nest and hold it all together with some mud (ranch dressing), just like a bird would. Cherry tomatoes cut in half can become the colorful eggs in the nest. Yum! A bird’s nest snack.
By using a child’s 5 senses and their imagination, parents truly can color their child’s diet healthy with a variety of fruits and vegetables.