Hiding Veggies...sneaky tricks this mom uses

Raise your hand if you have kids that don’t like certain veggies? Come on, you know you’re out there. As a mom of four kids, I know how hard it can be to get kids to eat foods they don’t necessarily think they like. Being sneaky is sometimes necessary to your kids good nutrition.

Here are a few simple ideas for nutritiously feeding your picky eaters:

Try using your food processor more...finely grate or chop carrots, zucchini, onions and more. Add this to your spaghetti sauce, meat loaf, lasagna, stir fry, even burgers.

Use the fact that your kids like to dip things! Cut carrots with a crinkle cutter or just in really thin julienne sticks and let them dip away. I don’t know why, but if carrots are cut in fun shapes or thin strips, kids think they are fun.

Add some grated carrot and zucchini to your dip to give them a double dose of veggies.

Make fried rice with grated veggies in it, along with their favorite meat shredded and mixed in.

Add grated carrot to cream cheese and spread it on celery...even add a bit of honey to add even more sweetness to the spread. Sounds crazy, but think about it, carrots are sweet on their own.

Get creative, there are so many ways to get veggies and fruits into your kids. Goodness, my grandmother used to put grated carrot in lime jello! Sounds nasty, but everyone always loved it.

Make zucchini bread, add zucchini to your banana bread...just peel the zucchini first so they won’t notice it. Yes, the peel is so good for them, but honestly if you can get them to eat the veggies, you are still ahead of the game. Once they know they like the bread, don’t peel it all. Yes, sneaky!

Coming up with ways to disguise your veggies will help, but the ultimate goal is to get your kids to realize that the veggies they “think” they don’t like, are really quite tasty! If you are blessed to not have picky eaters, congratulations! If you do, try a few tricks now and then. Even if all you are doing is cutting the veggies into fun shapes, if they eat them you have won. :)