I recently came across The Great Big Vegetable Challenge blog by an English mum who has a fantastic way of getting her vegetable phobic son to eat vegetables.
The UK Telegraph featured them in a story which I will paraphrase for you to give you the gist of this successful strategy.
Eight year old Freddy has refused to eat vegetables most of his life and would only eat potatoes and corn. His mum, Charlotte was at the end of her tether and like every other mother she tried everything from cajoling him, bribing him, getting angry to ignoring his picky eating.
So when you have a picky eater you tend to only offer safe choices because that all you think they will eat. This is exactly what his mum did and only cooked broccoli, carrots, peas and beans but it didn’t work and the vegetable battles continued at every meal.
Believing there had to be a better way, she decided to present him with lots of different vegetables in lots of different ways, in the hope he’d like something and that she could make him see how ridiculous it was to refuse everything that’s a vegetable.
So The Great Big Vegetable Challenge was born. It is a journey of trying all vegetables from A to Z. Charlotte cooks each vegetable three ways so that Freddie can see that even though he doesn’t like peas boiled and served plain, he may like them as pea pesto or in a creamy pea soup. Freddy gets to rate each recipe.
Charlotte started a blog of the journey and to also ask people from all over the world to send vegetables recipes. She cooks the recipes, posts pictures, Freddie’s comments and ratings on the blog.
And it is working. Freddie is trying all vegetable three ways and even liking more than some of them. This A to Z adventure started in November 2006 with A for asparagus and they are now up to T for Turnip.
Charlotte acknowledges that the success of the challenge has been due to;
Not narrowing Freddy’s vegetable choices
By only offering him certain, ‘safe’ vegetables to combat his pickiness meant she was mirroring his behaviour when there are actually thousands of different vegetables to choose from.
Allowing Freddy control over what he ate
Even though Freddy wasn’t cooking the recipes he become involved in the process and was more inclined to try new things.
Allowing Freddie to rate each recipe of what he did and didn’t like help establish this sense of being in control.
Through the blog Freddie became excited by communicating with people from all over the world and sending them feedback on their recipes. He also experienced a sense of responsibility to his audience to try their recipe.
Removed herself from the equation
The vegetable challenge is about Freddy and broadening his food horizons rather than Charlottes’ emotions tied to the Freddy rejecting his vegetables and taking it personally.
“It was about taking the heat out of the kitchen and turning meals into joyous, fun, warm social occasions rather than opportunities for one person to score points against another” she says.
If you have a vegetable hater in your family follow The Great Big Vegetable Challenge lead and try a mini challenge with your kids.
Eat the vegetable alphabet over 26 nights, ie night 1 is an A vegetable, night 2 is a B vegetable etc. or make every Sunday night for the next 26 weeks the night to eat through the vegetable alphabet.
Like Freddy, get your child involved in selecting the recipes, they can be sourced from family members, neighbours, recipe books or surfing the internet. Allow them to rate each recipe from 1 to 10. You could even make a scorecard for them.
Make your challenge fun and a family event. Praise your child for trying the vegetable not for just for eating it. If they don’t try it, you have exposed them to another vegetable and trying new foods is all about exposure. Remember to take the emotion out it.
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I really like the idea of using the vegetable alphabets. That sounds like a fun way to get the kids to get excited about eating them.
Hi Joy
Thanks for stopping by. If you have a kid who doesn’t like eating vegetables, I have a few more posts planned on successful tips to get them to eat ‘their greens’.
Great post.
I was lucky enough to have parents and grandparents who grew vegetables when I was a child.
They always made a point getting the kids involved from choosing the seeds to planting and tending to them as they grew.
By the time they were ready to be harvested, we were eager to cook or eat them raw.
I think many kids today really do miss out on the whole experience of fruit and vegetables as we now just go to a store and buy them.
This is an excellent idea and one that any parent can try in an effort to encourage them to try different foods.
Thanks for posting
Thanks Sally
Growing vegetables with kids is a great way of encouraging them to eat their greens. However, due to smaller backyards and busy commitments its difficult for mums and dads to grow their own vegetables these days.
I did laugh when one mum told me how she grew beans to encourage her son to eat them and it worked. When the growing season was over, she would buy store beans and plant them and pretend they were still growing so her son would continue to eat them.
I would like to find a few more farms where you can pick your own fruit or vegetables as this would be a great alternative as well as being a fun day out.
Interestingly, there has been a rise of farmers markets in the last few years as people are trying to buy more locally. These markets are also fun to take the kids too and they can talk to the growers direct.
Thanks or the ideas; have five year old and is a vegetable hater apart from peas.. so this will help.