My little one will eat almost any vegetable–as long as it is cooked. If it’s roasted, sautéed, or steamed, with olive oil or butter and sea salt, she’ll eat it. If it’s in a soup, no problem! But raw vegetables are a different story. Her older sister will eat any vegetable raw, and if in a salad, even better. But as for the raw vegetables, not so much.
We call this salad Sweetest Salad because it uses all the sweetest vegetables on hand!
I gather a red bell pepper, carrot, and apple from the fridge, and ask her to harvest some lettuce and snap peas from the garden. Kids are much more inclined to eat what they help prepare.
With a vegetable peeler, she carefully peels long carrot ribbons, while I slice the apples paper-thin. I let her wash and tear the lettuce leaves while I slice the red pepper. She loves to see the little peas inside the pod, so I slice them lengthwise for “cuteness”.
It’s a super simple, but since kids learn with all of their senses, I let her take her time to arrange the veggies for “presentation”. The salad is so sweet, there is no dressing needed. We add a little olive oil for silkiness and sometimes a squeeze of lemon.
For more ideas to get kids to eat veggies click here.
Razi Berry, Founder and Publisher of Naturopathic Doctor News & Review (ndnr.com) and NaturalPath (thenatpath.com), has spent the last decade as a natural medicine advocate and marketing whiz. She has galvanized and supported the naturopathic community, bringing a higher quality of healthcare to millions of North Americans through her publications. A self-proclaimed health-food junkie and mother of two; she loves all things nature, is obsessed with organic gardening, growing fruit trees (not easy in Phoenix), laughing until she snorts, and homeschooling. She is a little bit crunchy and yes, that is her real name.