To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we’re returning with our First Love campaign to highlight why falling in love with veggies can do wonders for kids and their well being.
Loving and appreciating veggies is a key ingredient in the recipe for self care and self love! From childhood to adulthood, prioritizing health is a cornerstone in taking care of ourselves and our little ones. Embracing veggies and healthy living is one of the best ways to show love to ourselves and our kids.
Canadian statistics show that Canadian kids are not eating enough veg due to factors like the increasing food costs. While these are tricky barriers to overcome, we want to do our best to help them connect and fall in love with veggies as much as possible. After all, studies show eating enough veggies can regulate blood sugar levels and make kids feel satisfied.
RFRK Tips for Falling in Love With Veggies
- Eliminate the competition
- Engage all senses
- Experiment
- Serve even more
- Presentation is key
That’s where putting veggies first comes into play. When veggies take the lead on the plate, kids tend to eat more of them and find them more enjoyable! This is a throwback to our veggie-loving tip called eliminating the competition.
Presentation is Key
Everyone eats with their eyes, including kids! It’s one of the major senses, and also links back to our strategy of engaging all senses.
The way ingredients look are sometimes just as appealing as how they taste, and it can make kids want to eat their veggies before the rest of their meal.
First, embrace the rich, vibrant colours and interesting shapes of vegetables. For example, highlight the bright, green nature of veggies like broccoli and spinach, you can even point out how broccoli florets resemble tiny trees! These comparisons add a playful and imaginative twist to veggies, drawing kids to them. You can also illustrate how placing cascading colours side by side creates a veggie rainbow effect!
Play around with creative cutting, arrangement and composition to create visually pleasing patterns that intrigue kids. Similar to our previous tip of experimenting, you can use different techniques to make veggies enticing.
Try julienning vegetables like carrots, peppers and cucumbers to create slender, bite-sized strips (like french fries!). They are easy on the eyes, and easy to handle, providing a fun and manageable way to explore different textures! As a bonus, they’re also great for dipping!
Another tip, so simple, yet effective – is to serve even more veggies!
And if you’re looking for even more ways to inspire the kiddos to try more veggies, check out our full list of Valentine’s activities. There are also great tools & resources available from Rainbow Plate & Kids Eat In Color.
Don’t forget, you can share your child’s veggie victories by tagging @realfoodforrealkids. We love to hear about you and your kids practicing self love and healthy eating habits!
While you’re at it, be sure to spread love the RFRK way this Valentine’s Day with our delightful downloadable cards!
