Kids ranked carrots, broccoli, corn, and green peas as their favourite vegetables. However mums buy (in order of top-purchased vegetables per week) potatoes, baby carrots, tomatoes, lettuce/salads and corn. Spinach ranked last. This is according to a newly released survey by Produce for Kids of 1500 mums and children.
In my last post I noted that when you have a picky eater, mums tend to offer safe choices for fear their children will dislike the alternatives and then get stuck in a rut of serving ‘safe’ foods. It seems that this is reflected in this study. I’m sure many mums would have been surprised that their kids like broccoli as it is often wrongly maligned as a ‘universally hated’ vegetable. So this is your chance to add more greenery to your meals.
The survey also showed 70% of kids liked using dips to eat their fruit and vegetables. So when you serve vegetables also have a side serving of hummus, hollandaise, pesto, ranch dressing, tzatziki, guacamole, thousand island dressing ready for dipping.
Dipping is a fun way to eat for kids and I have incorporated this characteristic into some of my recipes; Dipsticks, Run Chicken Run and Green Martians on Flying Saucers. More recipes will be posted soon.
When it comes to fruit, mums and kids in the survey say bananas, apples, grapes, strawberries and easy-to-peel citrus fruits top their lists.
Another study last year (The Packer’s Fresh Trends 2007) show similar favourites for kids although broccoli this time only just made the top 10. This survey also based its results on the best selling fruit and vegetable produce that mum brought for the household.
Potatoes, onions, tomatoes and carrots top the list as the most popular vegetables in households with kids, while bananas, apples and grapes rank as the most popular fruits.
Some of the least-favourite items include pomegranates, papayas, beets, apricots, artichokes, cranberries, eggplant (aubergine), mangoes and kiwi fruit.
A survey by Heinz this year in the UK found the least popular vegetables for British kids are eggplant 39%, brussel sprouts 37%, celeriac 32% followed by cabbage 16% and mange tout (snow peas) 12%. Carrots came out on top.
I had no luck on finding any information about Australian kids.
The top three vegetables for both my kids are cucumbers, carrots and red capsicum (bell peppers). Brie Boy also loves tomatoes but Baby Bell won’t eat the seeds and will happy munch on lettuce which of course Brie Boy won’t touch.
They differ widely on fruit; Baby Bell is sticking with the trends as watermelon, apples, rockmelon (cantaloupe) and bananas are the only fruit she will eat. Brie Boy is happy to bend the rules and whilst he will eat pretty much any fruit put in front of him he loves mangoes, passionfruit, pineapple and plums.
How do your kids measure against the list?
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A lot of kids like brocoli with cheese. And the cheese is high in calcium and protein, even if it does have a lot of fat too.
Trish, that’s a great point. Grated cheese can help make a lot of vegetables more palatable, if you have time cheese sauce is a good option too.
My 3 year old eats avocadoes that I splash with just a little bit of soy sauce, broccoli steamed with a little smart balance/butter, spinach in a spinach ball I make plus loves spanokopita, steamed carrots, and cukes. As far as fruit, she likes raspberries, pineapple, pears,cherries…and about another 9 on the list. Okay, I feel better about her veggie and fruit intake after reading your post! Thanks for the info.