Veggie Time

I am so super grateful that the twins aren't picky eaters. Of course they have their favorite foods and I have to bribe them with applesauce to get them to finish their dinner, but all in all they do pretty well. Charlie is a bit more resistant to vegetables than I would like, though, and Caroline is a bit of a treat-aholic. So I've been trying a few strategies lately to get them to eat more veggies and I've found a few that have worked really well for us!

1. Cook veggies into rice. My kids LOVE rice. Especially Char. So a couple of times a week I pull out every vegetable in my fridge, chop them up, sauté them in olive oil then add some rice and chicken broth and bake it until it's soft. Usually it ends up that the veggie to rice ratio is about 3-1, seriously packed with some vegetable goodness. And the kids gobble it up! Charlie averages about 3 bowls of rice each time I make it. I can throw any veggie into it that he would normally gag on and he downs it anyway. Some of my favorite add-ins are squash, mushrooms, celery, eggplant, tomatoes, and carrots. But really, anything goes and it's always delish.
2. Cut out pre-dinner snacks. While I'm making dinner, the kids are usually running around destroying the house, sitting on the baby, or pulling one another's hair. One way I used to help tame the madness was to give them applesauce, crackers, goldfish etc. to keep them occupied while I cooked. And then, surprise! They weren't hungry for dinner. At least not hungry enough to eat the vegetables on their plate. Now, I try to offer them bites of the veggies I am cutting up and using for our meal. Surprisingly, I have found that they love raw potato, zucchini, and cucumber. I don't mind letting them snack before dinner if it's on vegetables that are going to be on their plate anyway!
3. Serve the vegetables first. I used to try to put everything on their plate at once and cross my fingers and hope that they would eat their vegetables. Usually, though, they go right for the fruit, grains and dairy (and sometimes the meat) and the veggies get thrown on the ground. When they haven't snacked before dinner, though, and sit down super hungry, it's the perfect time to throw a plate filled with colorful and delicious vegetables down in front of them. The clean their plates nearly every time. Success!
4. If I don't get the vegetables to them before the rest of the meal, then they have started responding well to bribery, as I mentioned before. Not bribing with sweets or candy or cake or anything, but bribing with something that I'm ok with them eating more of. Example: the other day we had a fruit salad with our dinner. I put everything on their plate, and they ate the fruit salad first, followed by the rest of the meal but leaving some vegetables on their plate. When they inevitably ask for more fruit, it has worked well for us to say "You can definitely have more fruit, you just have to finish your vegetables first." It took a few tries to make it work. Usually Charlie is super eager and so he finishes his vegetables and gets more fruit right away, and Caroline looks longingly at the fruit before finally deciding it's worth eating the vegetables for. We have had so much less food wasted with this tactic!

Clearly I'm no expert. But this is what has been working for us lately. And as an added bonus, when I'm focused on making sure my kids get plenty of vegetables, I eat more too! Anybody want to share any other secrets to getting toddlers to eat more vegetables?