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Hiding Vegetables

There has been a lot of controversy over Jessica Seinfeld's new cookbook Deceptively Delicious. The whole idea of the book is showing you away to get your kids to eat their vegetables by hiding them in kid friendly foods. There are a lot of people out there that say this is wrong, even "sneaky". That by doing this we as parents are teaching our kids that it is okay to sneak around and hide things. But on the other hand you have the parents that are totally for it, because after trying everything they still are not able to get their child to eat vegetables. We all know that we have to have our fruits and vegetables to be healthy, and our jobs as parents is to make sure that our kids are as healthy as can be.

So I know you are wondering am I for it or against it? Well, for me I am completely for it. I have a daughter and I make sure that she eats as organic and natural foods as I can find. She takes her whole foods vitamins, and is very active. But one day she just decided that she was no longer going to eat her vegetables. And when I say one day I really mean that, one day she ate them and the very next she said she wasn't going to anymore.

I had tried everything to get her to start eating her vegetables again, but had absolutely no luck. I had then decided that I was going to make what we call in our house a shake. Which is a bunch fruits and vegetables thrown into a blender and made drinkable. She really loves these. At first I could not let her know that I was putting veggies in it or she would have absolutely nothing to do with it. But after awhile she started telling me what color she wanted in it (i.e. orange for carrot, green for spinach...etc). This was great, and I did not have to really worry about her having too much because there is nothing that is not healthy in it. We still make a shake everyday (a blender full) and she will drink it through out the day.

Even though I had found a way for her to get her fruits and vegetable servings, I still wanted to try to figure out how to get her to eat her vegetables with her meals, but she still was having nothing to do with this, and she even knew that there were vegetables in her shakes. I was talking to everyone I knew that had kids and asked her doctor who just said you have to make sure she is getting them but had no advice on how to do this. I was so much at a loss.

And then I saw it I was sitting down watching Oprah and she had Jessica Seinfeld on and was talking about her new cookbook "Deceptively Delicious". I must say that it really got my attention. She shows you a way to put or "hide" the vegetables in the foods that your child is already eating. I really must say that this was the best thing to be hearing.

Now I know a lot of you really do not approve of this method, but there are a lot of us out there who just do not know what else to do. And just as you feel you are doing what's best for your child so do we. I really do think that this is definitely a personal decision that each parent has to make based off of who their child is and their circumstances. I really do know that this is not for everyone, but for me it has worked wonderfully.

I have been doing this for a little over a year now, and I will continue to do this until she starts eating them on her own. She does now know that there are vegetables in her food. She eats them with no problem, I however can't get her to eat them by themselves but for now that is okay.

The best thing I think that I could have done with this is that I let her help. She sees everything that is going into her food and I let her make the decision on what color of vegetable she wants in her food today. She absolutely loves to cook and bake and has no problem putting vegetables in her food. I know that not every child would be like this, but you would really be amazed at the kind of reaction you would get if you actually let your child have a little voice in what they are eating or how it is being prepared.

Don't be afraid to just ask your child why they won't eat vegetables, but make sure you really listen to them when they answer. There may be an actual reason as to why. In my case there wasn't she just decided that they were big people food and when she gets big she will eat them.

This is what works for my family.

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