How to get your kids to eat their greens? Simple. Follow this NO FAIL guaranteed guide to healthy eating.
Follow these steps with your child:
- Plant broccoli in the garden
- Watch it grow
- Go to the fruit shop
- Buy broccoli
- Smell it. Does it have a smell?
- Feel it. Is it hard? Would it be crunchy to eat?
- What sound might it make when you eat it?
- Look at broccoli. What colour is it?
- Draw a picture of broccoli
- Pretend to make broccoli soup
- Ask child to wash broccoli
- Cut broccoli (with kids knife)
- Lightly Steam broccoli
- Serve with a sauce (cheese, tzatziki, peanut butter)
- Serve with carrots
- Put broccoli in the middle of the table
- Serve yourself some broccoli
- Sit at the table and eat broccoli with you child
- Comment how crunchy broccoli is
- DO NOT comment or worry if you child does or does not eat broccoli.
- Next day. Stir fry broccoli in a sweet soy sauce. Serve with chicken, rice and other accepted vegetables in the middle of table
- Sit at the table with your child and serve yourself some broccoli
- Comment how sweet the broccoli is today
- Give tongs to child to let them serve themselves.
- DO NOT comment or worry if child does not eat broccoli
- 4 days later make broccoli fritters
- Put in middle of table
- Serve yourself broccoli
- Eat broccoli
- Let child choose or not choose broccoli
- Go to store to buy more broccoli
- Repeat
- Repeat again and again, don’t bother counting how many times
- Smile
- Eventually they will try broccoli. And in the meantime you’ve eaten lots of delicious broccoli
- Repeat from Step 1 but replace broccoli with a different green veg (or any fruit or veg)
note: if you too are still learning to like broccoli, then tell your children, share it with your children and go on the journey together.