How To Get Your Kid To Eat Vegetables – Herbed Vegetable Dip
Children don’t always eat their vegetables. With my son it was no problem; he would sit silently in the back seat of the car during long trips, for example, munching an entire feed bag full of raw vegetables. My daughter Ariana…well, not so much. I had to devise a way to get her to eat a little plant life. I developed a three-pronged approach.
Initially, I tried to get her invested in the garden. If she had a hand in growing the vegetables, my thinking went, she was sure to eat them. She planted and watered with me, watching seeds germinate and grow, eventually sprouting flowers, which turned into fruits we could consume. This was partially successful; there were improvements on the vegetation consumption front.
What really got her to eat vegetables was the second phase of the plan. Defiant may be a strong word, but Ariana has earned the title by always doing the opposite of what we requested. I used this to my advantage. While she was “helping” me in the garden, I specifically told her not to pick and eat snow peas and sugar snap peas. She promptly did. I forbade her from eating green beans right off the vine. Right down her gullet. Worked like a charm.
Then there was my third approach. At dinner one evening, I made a bet, one that I was willing to lose. I bet my daughter that I could crunch my vegetables louder than she could crunch hers. I took a raw carrot or cucumber and crunched it in her ear. She then crunched hers in my ear. I wasn’t really sure who was louder, so we had to try it again. We went back and forth and continued into the next day, and the next. Sometimes she was louder and sometimes I was. We compared different raw vegetables to test their crunch volume – carrots, cucumber, green beans, and pea pods were some of the loudest. Eventually I suckered her into liking raw vegetables, a plate of which graces our table at the beginning of dinner every evening.
While I was happy my plan was successful and I got my daughter to like vegetables, it was a failure on one front: as she prepares to leave our house for college this week, I’ve failed because, while she eats plenty of raw vegetables, she refuses to eat any that are cooked.
Herbed Vegetable Dip
Another way to get your kid to eat vegetables is to give them a bowl of this herbed vegetable dip. It is perfect for dipping raw vegetables before dinner or at a party. It is especially good with fresh summer vegetables that your child helped pick and grow in your backyard garden.
10 minutes, about 1½ cups
8 oz. (1 package) cream cheese, room temperature
½ cup mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. scallion greens or chives, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed or finely minced
½ tsp. kosher salt
½ tsp. fresh ground pepper
2 Tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
2 Tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped
Fresh cut raw (or quickly parboiled) vegetables for dipping, such as carrots, cucumbers, asparagus spears, green beans, sugar snap or snow peas, zucchini, sweet peppers, radishes, fennel, celery sticks, broccoli, cauliflower
- In a bowl, combine the cream cheese, mayonnaise, scallion or chives, garlic, salt, pepper, basil, and parsley. Use a fork to mash them together until they are well combined. Taste and correct seasonings, if needed. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Cut the vegetables and parboil if you wish. Arrange on a platter and serve with dip.
This dip sounds delicious. But cream cheese and mayonnaise? Is there anything with fewer calories that might be just as tasty? Something with Greek yogurt or cottage cheese whipped up in a blender?