Increasing Kids Vegetable Consumption

Shopping helps kids eat vegetables One way of getting your kids to eat more vegetables is to become more familiar with them. Just cooking veggies and serving on a regular basis is one way, but it can take between 10-13 times on their plate before they are familiar. It can also be soul destroying when they won’t eat it after you have spent time and effort cooking it.

Taking my kids fruit and vegetable shopping has been a successful way of introducing them to vegetables and making them familiar. Before you start howling loads of protests at me like, do you know how hard it is too take kids shopping - yes I do, although I only ever had to take two so I grant that three or more may be difficult.

I would try to make the shopping experience fun and enjoyable. When they were very little and sat in the trolley I used to tell them the first item I needed and we would find it, touch it and smell it and as they got older they would also put them in the bag for me.

At the checkout I would ask their help to put them on the register and as each fruit or vegetable was pulled out we would say what it was. As they got older they would tell me what it was.

Yes, it did making shopping slower but it was worth the effort as they started to learn the name and smell and therefore the tasting down the track wasn’t as scary because they already familiar with it.

When they were no longer able to sit in the trolley, I made the shopping more of a game and asked them to find whatever I was looking for and then we would count how many we needed.

Brie Boy would often pick up fruit and vegetables that I wouldn’t normally buy and rather than saying ‘put it down!’, I asked him if he would like to try it and more often than not he said yes. Brie Boy was more than willing to try new fruit and veggies because he chose it.

Through this we have ended up eating;

pomegranate – a big thumbs up, especially from Brie Boy
dragonfruit – thumbs down from all of us
perisimmons – okay but not rushing back
youngberries + mulberries - both thumbs up
squash – thumbs down from the kids
celery - now a staple
dutch carrots – now alternate between this and regular carrots
honeydew melon – prefer watermelon or rockmelon
long flat Italian beans – thumbs down from the kids
pistachios, macadamias, cashews - both thumbs up from the kids, adults were already sold

Now that Brie Boy is a little older he doesn’t consider shopping an outing anymore. However, when he has no choice but to come with me I now tell him what I want and he goes off and finds it for me and then I give him another item.

Below are some other ways to involve children in fruit and vegetable shopping that I know other mums use.

Show them a picture of a fruit or vegetable and have them find it
Ask them to tell you the shape, colour or size of the fruits and vegetables.
Have them count the number of vegetables they see in the store.
Ask them to find vegetables or fruit of their favourite colour and choose one to try.

Do you think taking your kids shopping will increase their fruit and vegetable consumption?