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healthy eating

Family

Mom shares simple-but-genius hack for getting kids to try new foods and eat their veggies

"They have discovered they love radishes, bell peppers, salami, cheeses, spicy things, sour things…"

Photo by cottonbro studio

Kids can be finicky eaters.

One of the responsibilities of parenting is making sure our kids are fed nutritious foods. Unfortunately, our kids are not always on board with that idea.

Children's finickiness ranges anywhere from will-eat-anything to will-only-eat-chicken-nuggets and everything in between. Picky eating poses a challenge for parents who want their kids to have balanced, nutritional diet, and all too often it turns into a battle of wills. Unfortunately, food battles can create negative associations with eating and mealtimes, which nobody wants. We do want our kids to try new foods and to learn to enjoy healthy eating, however. So how do we do that?

X user Jeff Thompson posed the question: "Kids picky about food…what’s the strategy to get them to try new things?" and people weighed in with their advice. But one response in particular struck a chord both for its simplicity and effectiveness.

Bethany Babcock wrote, "Ok I actually have a great tip for this. Movie nights the kids get a 'snack plate' for dinner. Like a blend of a charcuterie board and veggie and fruit tray. I put all their favorites and sneak in new foods. All arranged super cute."

"It’s the only time I’m full on Pinterest mom," she added.

She explained that the snacking continues as the movie plays and that the dim lights and semi-distracted state leads the kids to try everything that's on their plate. "The new foods go last but eventually everything is gone," Babcock wrote.

She said she gives them dipping sauces like hummus and dressings to dunk their healthy finger foods in. "The key is to put it all one one big board. The kids eat fast trying things because they are afraid someone else will and they will miss out. They have discovered they love radishes, bell peppers, salami, cheeses, spicy things, sour things…" she shared.

Babcock also shared a photo of how she started with the snack plate idea when her kids were toddlers, opening their "boxes" like they were a surprise.

Some people might take issue with the "mindless eating" aspect of munching in front of a movie, but when the munchies are healthy it's a great way to semi-fool kids into trying something they normally might scoff at. According to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, it can take between eight and 15 tries before a child will accept a new food, but parents often give up after a few attempts. The more opportunities you can find to get kids to taste something, the better.

Of course, there are some foods people just don't like regardless of their age, so if a child has tasted something many many times and still doesn't like it, no need to force it. There's a big, wide world of healthy food options out there, and leaning into the variety and the fun of exploring new foods helps kids expand their palate without the battle.

As KidsHealth.org points out, parents are the ones who control the food offerings, so the key is to provide a range of healthy foods in the home and then encourage kids to explore what's offered. If a little dim lighting and movie distraction helps them do that, all the better.

No need to duke it out with kids to get them to eat their veggies or protein or whatever it is you want them to eat. Just keep offering healthy options, make the food attractive, create a relaxed atmosphere around eating and most kids will inevitably come around to trying almost anything you put in front of them.

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A marketing campaign to get people in Africa to eat sweet potatoes? It's working.

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Gates Foundation: The Story of Food

Random thoughts I have while looking at sweet potatoes:

"You'd look great as a plate of fries."

"Honestly, who was the first to decide to put marshmallows all over you?"

"Wait. Are these yams?"

A thought I have never had: This type of potato saves lives.

As it turns out, they might actually do just that.

Image via iStock.

Welsy Anena's mother is convinced that orange sweet potatoes saved her daughter's life.  

Not in a "thanks for the side dish, I was so hungry!" kind of way. In an actual life-saving way.

Her daughter, Welsy, had been so sick as a baby, and in and out of a Ugandan hospital — sometimes in such serious condition, her mom didn't know if she'd even make it. But when her baby started being fed orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, her health turned around and now she's a vibrant, healthier kid. Whoa.

Her mom's story isn't the only one that depicts sweet potatoes as an edible hero.

You see, Welsy suffered from Vitamin A deficiency — the leading cause of preventable blindness in developing countries. In Uganda, 1 out of every 3 kids under 5 suffers from Vitamin A deficiency, resulting in almost 30,000 child deaths every year. And that's just in one country.

Orange sweet potatoes can help.

Image via International Potato Center, used with permission.

While orange sweet potatoes are common in the United States, they are very new in Africa.

For hundreds of years, Africans have had their own version of a sweet potato: white and yellow in color, very starchy and firm, and frankly, a terrible source of vitamin A.

That's a heavy contrast from the type of sweet potatoes we find in our grocery stores in the U.S., where they are carrot-colored and known for their vitamins and nutrients, especially their vitamin A.

Researchers had an idea: If orange sweet potatoes combat vitamin A deficiency, what would happen if they could get communities to eat them instead?

Maybe it could help prevent blindness and death in kids. They're finding out.

For the past 15 years, the International Potato Center (CIP) has been leading the way on introducing the orange-fleshed sweet potato in Africa.

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

It's been an adventure and easier said than done. Africans initially scoffed at the idea of orange sweet potatoes. No way. The potatoes had a weird texture and weren't what they were used to eating. They were also grown differently from their traditional type of sweet potatoes. All signs pointed to no. Can you blame them?

The research team from CIP took note and developed a starchier version of the orange sweet potato that still contained more vitamin A than other potatoes, but tasted more in line with what Africans were accustomed to.

Once they had the potato how they wanted it, they had to get people to want to eat it.

They created widespread marketing campaigns that, according to Smithsonian magazine, included radio advertisements and visits to villages in vehicles with sweet potatoes painted on the side.

They traveled around the region teaching about the sweet potato's nutrition.

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

And showed the power of eating them through pictures and words.

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

They made sure to have a big presence at exhibitions and community-wide events.

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

Children's songs were written and performed about the potatoes.

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

The campaign worked. And it's still working today.

Today, the orange-fleshed sweet potato has reached 2.2 million households, which amounts to roughly 10 million people in Africa.

Scientists are super optimistic at the ability to reduce vitamin A deficiency through this new exposure to the potato. They project that by 2023, 30 million children could be saved from blindness and death because of it.

"We have evidence that  eating 125g of orange-flesh sweet potato provides a child the amount of vitamin A required to prevent blindness from vitamin A deficiency," wrote Joel Ranck, head of communications for the CIP, in an email."125g is about the size of one small sweetpotato."

It's no wonder the research team, comprised of Dr. Jan Low, Maria Andrade, and Robert Mwanga from the CIP, and Howarth Bouis of Harvest Plus, just won the 2016 World Food Prize for their work on this initiative. Bravo!

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

Together they have built new excitement and hope surrounding child nutrition and preventable blindness in the 14 countries where the orange-flesh sweet potato is now available, with more countries to come.

Agnes Amony, a Ugandan farmer told Harvest Plus, "I began feeding my child on these nutritious foods following the knowledge I attained in the recommended feeding practices for children under five. My child began gaining weight steadily and I am in no doubt that these foods have saved my child’s life. I am forever grateful and will never stop feeding my child on these food crops."

Every step counts. Or, in this case, every bite.

See more on how the orange-flesh sweet potato could, in fact, change the world:

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