Do your kids eat salad? I'm guessing most of you with little ones answered no. Up until this past Sunday night, I would have said no too! After hearing how my friend gets her son to eat salad, I thought I'd give it a try, and add some other steps in the process that might make my kids go for it even more. Our first step was heading out to the weekly market here in Chattanooga. It has a lot of local vendors selling things from crafts to vegetables. We hit up the strawberry table first. My oldest son doesn't particularly like strawberries, but when I let him pick out the basket we're going to buy and let him pay for it, he immediately asks to eat one right then. After seeing him do this a couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd get him involved in purchasing other things at the market too. This week we also bought red lettuce, spinach, and cucumbers.
Fast forward to dinner time. I made a delicious, fresh salad with everything we got at the market, plus some other things we already had. On the boys plates, I placed two pieces of spinach, with a few craisins, croutons, and a couple of chunks of carrots and cucumbers. Now for the secret ingredient, I drizzled their lettuce with a small amount of honey. (This is the tip I got from my friend.) And guess what, they ate it! They didn't eat it at first, but after I reminded them we bought it at the market, and it had honey on it, they tried it. And asked for more! I was shocked! My 3 year old and almost 2 year old ate salad! I was so thrilled.
So, I encourage you to try this with your kids. Honey isn't any worse than drenching a salad in salad dressing, it's actually probably healthier! I also encourage you to include your kids in picking out your groceries, especially fruits and vegetables. I have proof that it will help them to want to eat those types of foods more often. If it doesn't work for you the first time, try again later. It's all about exposing your kids to good, healthy foods over and over again, and one day, they will choose to eat it. Hopefully!
1 comment:
That's a really great tip. Lately we've been drinking our salads (making spinach and fruit smoothies) but I'm starting to make more salads and would love for my girls to eat them too. I'll have to give this a try.
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