We have a demo scheduled tonight, and we're excited about it; the topic is "How to Get Your Child to Eat Almost Anything"- specifically focused on veggies. We're not huge proponents of hiding vegetables, though we know there's a place for it and do have recipes that include veggies, either pureed or chopped fine. In fact, I've been playing with many such recipes recently and have discovered that one can even hide spinach and carrots in brownies! Yes, brownies!
This all has led me to ask- what are we at Mish Mash really about? We fall somewhere in the middle between raw veggies and hiding: We would rather kids learn from the start that veggies are a natural, tasty part of meal time to be enjoyed- and usually if they start by eating homemade veggie purees, there's more success with this. So our job is to give parents strategies to get there.
Still, there are always kids who really avoid veggies at certain stages, and it's important to give them ownership of meals and to help them to understand what they're eating, and get them talking about the vegetables, naming them, and helping you prepare them by washing or tossing them into salads or soups. That way they'll know the name at the dinner table, and it won't be quite so "foreign."
A montessori catalogue I once read included vocabulary cards with vegetables- these would be a great way for kids to "own" the names of veggies at a young age and be able to recognize and sort them.
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