Making Veg Fun!
We asked Natasha Gavin from I Know Why It’s Yum, Mum! for her tops tips on making veg fun
We asked Natasha Gavin from I Know Why It’s Yum, Mum! for her tops tips on making veg fun
Great teachers make learning fun. We all know that from our days at school.
And you want your kid to grow into a healthy (vegetable eating and appreciating) adult. But does it seem hard to get them to eat up any, let alone ALL, of their greens? As a mum of two boys, and someone who has worked with thousands of children who are not exactly big veg lovers, my advice is to tap into your inner child, to make a genuine connection with your own kid, and just play with veg. It might sound a bit mad, but I believe this will be your turning point. Here are the reasons why playing veg related games (and learning about the importance of eating veg in a fun way), achieves incredible physical and mental health benefits:
Here are a few games to try – tailor them to your child. Some kids love arts and craft (you could paint with veg), others like challenges (memory games!), some need to move and enjoy a sense of adventure (fast paced treasure hunts?)
The only rule is keep it FUN! If it isn’t working, don’t get disheartened. Just try something different on another day. I have not yet met a child who doesn’t love to play – even with veg!
Painting and printing with veg is great fun. Halve your items. Broccoli florets, potatoes, celery hearts! You can make beautiful roses with celery hearts- perfect for Mother’s day, and for discovering the more ‘unusual’ essential oil in celery – which actually has a calming effect on the nervous system, and is anti depressant. Just cut them off at about 5 cm from the base, dip in red paint et voila! Be sure to enjoy and inhale the smell with your children, before you paint.
Children love treasure hunts. I run them at events, and feel like the pied piper, as I weave a group of 30 kids through the stands and crowds, all hunting for a colourful rainbow sticker which is a clue that something wonderful is hidden there! Like a tin of tomatoes (good for your skin) or a bottle of sunflower oil (good for your brain). Rather than a chocolate egg treasure hunt at Easter, how about trying a veg hunt? Kale crisps, almond butter, popcorn..not all has to be edible (tins, plastic fruit and veg, bottles), but it is fun if something is!
These work really well with active children. The floor is the sea, so they have to clamber over/ under/ through things to avoid falling into it, pick up veg as they go along, and accomplish challenges along the way- like picking up a pumpkin seed with their tongue or balancing a sprout leaf on their nose.
This is a top technique for a kid who won’t eat a veg. Get them to make a real 3D picture of it? Cabbages are great, pumpkins with real pumpkin seeds stuck on the picture, carrots with real tops stuck on top of the picture of a carrot.
I use food to create landscapes. Animal shaped pasta, breadstick enclosures, purple cabbage pond, broccoli and leek trees, rosemary bushes, pea boulders, sweetcorn sand… This stimulates their imagination, and de-sensitises them, and you never know, they might just sneak a bite!
You can buy great face plates, but why not use a tortilla wrap to make your own? Cream cheese spread thinly will help everything stick. Then get the kids to make a funny face using cucumber eyes, kale hair, pepper smiles… and after a few photos, they can roll them up, and eat them.
Natasha Gavin
Natasha Gavin
Supporters Newsletter
Be the first to find out about new downloads, campaigns and news from Veg Power with our monthly email newsletter
We asked award paediatric nutritionist Catherine Lippe for her top tips for at adding vegetables and fun to your child’s lunchbox
Adding veggies to your kid’s lunchbox doesn’t have to be tedious. It’s a great way to help your child reach their 5-a-day. Even if your child isn’t a veggie lover (yet!) try to include a small portion of at least one veg in their lunchbox each day. Perseverance pays off and over time your child is much more likely to accept veggies if they have been repeatedly exposed to them.
If carrot and cucumber sticks day after day don’t entice your child, try adding a tasty dip alongside the crudités for added interest. Hummus, guacamole, sour cream or a simple dollop of soft cheese spread will go well with any veggie sticks for dipping. Place the dips in a small, easy to open, sealable pot alongside the veggie sticks. To save on daily prep time for the veggies themselves, chop plenty at the weekend and keep in a sealed jar with some cold water in it to keep them from drying out – this works really well for carrots!
Pizza can be a great lunchbox filler. Whether you use shop-bought or make your own pizzas using pitta bread or tortilla wraps, why not add some extra veg to help boost your child’s intake? Sliced tomato, sweetcorn, chopped peppers, and even frozen peas all work well and will give the pizza some appetising colour too.
Making vegetables appealing doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Threading chopped vegetable pieces on skewers creates a fun way of exposing your child to vegetables. Raw peppers, cherry tomatoes (halved for the under 5’s), celery, cucumber, raw mushrooms and ready-to-eat beetroot all work well. Have a go at adding some new or unfamiliar veggies alongside ones that your child is already familiar with to increase exposure to new foods. Try our rainbow veggie kebabs, or Jamie Oliver’s Greek veggie kebabs if you want to go a step further and cook some with fun flavours for a new texture and taste.
Combining veggies with your kid’s favourite fruit in a fruit and veg salad combo can be a great way to expose them to more vegetables and add variety to their lunchbox. Cherry tomatoes, frozen peas, pepper slices, carrot sticks, tinned sweetcorn and sugar snap peas are great ideas for your fruit and veg salad. Why not try mixing pineapple & cucumber as in this salad, or add some strawberries to a spinach and avocado salad as in here to make it sweeter and more appealing to little eyes.
It might seem obvious but adding veg or salad to the good old sandwich or wrap should not be underestimated. Why not try grated carrot, spinach or lettuce leaves, cucumber or beetroot slices, pepper sticks or tinned sweetcorn alongside your usual fillings such as cheese, ham, hummus or tuna? How great do these crunchy carrot pittas sound?
Natasha Gavin
Supporters Newsletter
Be the first to find out about new downloads, campaigns and news from Veg Power with our monthly email newsletter
We asked chef Rachel De Thample for her top tips for getting kids to each raw veg at snack time.
There are so many reasons to get your kids to eat raw veg: uncooked veg is sweeter, crunchier, more colourful and it’s easier for you (or them) to prepare. Raw veg is also brilliant as a pre-dinner snack or an easy picnic or lunchbox option, and a great way to keep kids busy (and well-tempered) during long car journeys. With a pinch of fun and a dash of imagination, your children will be chomping raw carrots, munching broccoli trees and crunching cucumbers with glee. Here are some deliciously fun ways to get them hooked on raw veg snacks:
Not sure what to eat raw? Need some new raw veg ideas to change things up a bit? Try some of these raw veg superheroes next time the kids want a snack:
Natasha Gavin
Supporters Newsletter
Be the first to find out about new downloads, campaigns and news from Veg Power with our monthly email newsletter
We asked Dr Megan Rossi to explain how vegetables support a healthy gut.
How to get your gut-loving 30 plant points a week
We can be creatures of habit and it’s easy to get into a food rut – especially when we’re busy. But upping your plant diversity isn’t about making meals more complicated or expensive. I promise it’s way easier and cheaper than you might think!
You’ve probably heard how important our gut health is to our general health and happiness. Looking after your gut by eating plenty of fibre, and aiming to “eat the rainbow” can help to support a healthy immune system, get on top of gut issues, and more.
Veg is high in fibre, comes in a variety of colours and types, and keeps your gut happy!
My motto: enjoy 30 plant points a week for a diverse, balanced diet to nourish your gut health. Vegetables are an essential part of this.
Why the big 30?
The ‘5-a-day’ (or even ‘7-a-day’) rule can be a good place to start – but it doesn’t take into account the trillions of microbes living in our gut. They all need different types of plant foods to flourish.
For good gut health, the goal is diversity. So where has the ‘magic 30’ come from? Fuelled by research that I’ve then tested out in clinic, one of the key studies demonstrated that people who eat at least 30 different plant-based foods a week had more diverse gut microbes than people who ate less than 10. It’s certainly not as black and white as a single number, but in clinic 30 has shown to be an effective target, hence my recommendation for you guys!
And the more diverse plant foods we feed our gut microbes, the more diverse they become and the more ‘skills’ they have to…
What counts? All of your fruits, veg, wholegrains, legumes (beans and pulses), nuts and seeds, herbs and spices. 1 portion per point, with herbs and spices getting 1/4 point each.
Variety is key here and there’s no need to get caught up on portions at first – focus on diversity. By having small amounts throughout the week, chances are it’ll add up to enough portions overall.
Once you’re hitting your diversity goals, that’s when it can be time to start thinking about portions (a full portion is around 80g of veg per serve, or 50g for children, but I certainly don’t recommend weighing your meals – in most cases it’s roughly a handful (adult’s or child’s) which is easier to remember anyway!).
Here’s what 30 plant points can actually look like:
VEG – Tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli, pepper, sweetcorn, spinach, potato, onion, peas, carrot, etc
FRUIT – Grapes, apricot, strawberries, watermelon, blueberries, raspberries, apple, banana, orange, kiwi, etc
GRAINS – Oats, brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat, wholewheat flour, etc
LEGUMES, NUTS & SEEDS – Chickpeas, lentils, tinned beans, pack of seeds, pack of nuts (mixed for extra points!), etc
Good gut health does NOT need to be time-consuming or costly (no expensive supplements here) – simple changes can make a big difference.
How many different plant points have you had this week?
To find out more, head to theguthealthdoctor.com or @theguthealthdoctor
Natasha Gavin
Supporters Newsletter
Be the first to find out about new downloads, campaigns and news from Veg Power with our monthly email newsletter
We asked food writer and broadcast Bee Wilson, should we let our kids play with their food?
‘Playful’ isn’t necessarily the mood that comes to mind for most parents when talking about helping children to eat more vegetables. ‘Annoying’, ‘exhausting’ and ‘futile’ is more the vibe around many family dinner tables. Or at least, this is how it was for me and my youngest son when he went through a long phase of refusing anything green (or purple or red, come to that).
But there’s a lot of evidence that when it comes to expanding a child’s horizons with vegetables, playing with your food is much more effective than most other techniques such as cajoling or hiding vegetables in a cake (which sounds like a great idea until you realise that it only reinforces the idea that cake is delicious and vegetables are not). Our grandparents were told never to play with their food. Yet it is only by playing with food with all of their senses that a child really gets to know it and decides whether it is safe to eat or not. This is one of the reasons why baby-led weaning can be such an effective way to introduce a child to solid food, because it gives them free rein to experiment with food.
If your kid doesn’t want to eat a vegetable – which is a perfectly natural response – let them know that they are free to smell it or touch it instead – or even lick it and spit it out. Yes, I know that the spitting part isn’t fun to watch. But I swear, my son’s relationship with vegetables was transformed after I started praising him for licking mushrooms and then spitting them out. All of this ‘playing’ is a way to make the vegetables become as familiar and safe to a child as toys.
There are all kinds of games you can play with vegetables, either at dinner time or in between meals. Next time you cook broccoli, try holding a floret in your hands to see if it looks like a little tree. Or pick different herb leaves and encourage your kid to smell them with your eyes closed. Discuss: what does the mint remind you of?
The first rule of feeding children is that nothing tastes good when it’s eaten in a spirit of coercion and this is where a spirit of play can help because it takes the pressure off both parent and the child. Next time you eat sugar snap peas together, instead of worrying about how many get eaten, try prising one of the pods open and counting the tiny peas inside. Or instead of asking your child to eat a tomato, just cut it open and take turns describing what you see. Can you see a pretty pattern, a brain or the letter ‘g’?
The beauty of play is that it is the opposite of pressure. The more a child can tap into their own natural sense of curiosity, the more likely they are – eventually – to try more vegetables. As parents, we are often desperate to get our children to eat the lovingly cooked food we have made (I know I was), but this anxiety can transmit itself to the child without us realising it. Even quite subtle forms of pressure can put a child off their dinner. A group of researchers in the U.S. found that when children were given vegetable soup and told to ‘finish your soup’, they ended up eating less of the soup than a control group who were given no verbal reminder to finish. Not only this, but the children who had been told to finish their soup seemed to have much more negative feelings about it. Children said things like, ‘Yuck, it’s yellow soup again’.
TastEd is a new kind of food education based on encouraging children to play with food using all five senses. Children might use their sense of touch to feel the papery skin of an onion or their sense of hearing to listen to the loud crunch of celery. Teachers report that in the TastEd classroom, children dare to try many more foods than they did before. The two golden rules are ‘no one has to try’ and ‘no one has to like’, which make children feel totally free to explore vegetables knowing that they won’t be judged if they dislike something. One Year 2 teacher in Cambridge recently reported that a child who had been receiving specialist dietitian help for over a year and who never usually ate anything at school felt able to try three new vegetables during a TastEd session – and she actually liked them. This is the power of play.
A few ideas for sensory vegetable games to play at home with your child
Natasha Gavin
Supporters Newsletter
Be the first to find out about new downloads, campaigns and news from Veg Power with our monthly email newsletter
Jess, mum of 8 year old Helena and 6 year old Fred asked us: My kids only seem to like raw veggies, which is healthy but a bit narrow – it’s cucumber, red pepper and carrot most days, can you suggest how I can incorporate some veg into hot meals?
We asked sensory expert Kim Smith to reply….
Firstly, I would say it’s fantastic that your children enjoy these fresh, raw veggies and not to worry about incorporating hot vegetables particularly. A few cold veg with a hot meal is totally acceptable to me, if that’s what they enjoy. Secondly, your question makes me wonder whether it’s the texture of cooked and hot veg that your children find challenging.
Let me explain. In my work at TastEd, where we guide children in exploring fruit and veg using the senses, I have met many children similar in age to your children, who have strong preferences for either hard or soft foods. I would definitely recommend having a gentle chat with your kids about what they like or dislike, but be sure to ask why. Be curious about why they dislike cooked veg. It might be that they just prefer hard, crunchy foods, which is fine once you understand this.
An approach I use with my own children is to use the senses, as we do in TastEd lessons, as a way to understand everyones’ likes and dislikes. Ask your children what they think a tomato sounds like, or how a carrot feels in their hands. Simply look at a radish and chat about what it reminds you all of. Or if you are serving hot vegetables to the rest of the family, ask them what they think it smells like, get them to try and describe it.
If your children say they hate something, always ask them why. We rarely give much thought to particular features of food that cause us to reject it. But simply understanding why foods are disliked may give you some clues about your children’s preferences, and even help you find foods similar to your children’s favourites they might enjoy.
Try simply talking about texture
Take some time to explore your own texture preferences as a family and chat about why. I am sure you will discover that you all have different likes and dislikes which is totally normal. We are all different. For example, some people hate the juicy inside of big tomatoes in combination with the hard seeds, whilst many adults never learn to enjoy the squashy, slimey texture of aubergine.
In your discussion, be curious and ask lots of open questions, such as “what does it remind you of?” “What is it similar to?” or “How does it feel to you?” to help the discussion. For example you could ask:
Conversations like this can help us to understand why a child refuses certain foods. My own son refused raw carrots in his lunchbox, but after having a similar conversation about texture, we discovered he loves softer foods, so we agreed to a pot of cooked carrots at lunchtime instead. And remember, our taste preferences change throughout our lifetime, and I am sure that your children will grow to love other foods as they get older.
For lots more ideas about using the senses to explore food with children download TastEd’s Parent guide or visit the parent section of our website for videos and activities and more.
Natasha Gavin
Supporters Newsletter
Be the first to find out about new downloads, campaigns and news from Veg Power with our monthly email newsletter
Follow Veg Power