Eat Your Veggies!

How do you get your kids to eat vegetables⁉️ 🥕🥦🥗🌱
This is a question that I get asked pretty frequently. Vegetables shouldn't be scary. It really is the way you introduce foods that matter. Imagine that you just landed on Mars, and everything looks foreign to you. 👽 That's what it's like for a child. They are cautious of things that have a different pattern or smell because that is a natural survival instinct. 
It is a very abstract concept to understand how a vegetable on your plate can come from something as small as a seed. 🌱🎍 
So what's a parent to do 🤷‍♀️. Simply placing a cup in your kitchen by the window and growing a carrot can be a great visual connection between seed and the finished product. I love the garden root viewer (link in bio from Amazon) by @toysmithtoys ⠀📚📖📚
I also like to pair this with a book that talks about where food comes from. "Up in the garden down in the dirt" is a great book for really explaining the process of gardening. (link in bio). This is a great book for ages 3/3.5+. For the little ones, I like "Eating the alphabet." I actually bring it to the market with us and have my daughter "read" it while seeing the real-life fruits and veggies. 🛒🛒🛒
One of my favorite things to do is to take the kids to the grocery store or the farmers market (as you may know from my instastories😊). When you enter the produce section, this is a great opportunity to allow your child to exert some autonomy. 💪
You can say: "You may pick a vegetable or fruit to buy." Not only do they feel a sense of independence, but the child will be more willing and excited to try the new vegetable that they picked at home 🏡. Does this always work? NO, but it is a good place to start😉 
Lastly and this is probably the most important -- involve your children in cooking. 👩‍🍳👨‍🍳 Even a child as young as 12 months can assist you in preparing a meal. This helps pull the child in to see the magic of food. ✨💫✨ 
Comment below with any questions/struggles you have, or what tips you have too ⬇️⬇️⬇️