all this talk about "hiding" veggies...

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  • SweetSammie
    SweetSammie Posts: 391 Member
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    My family is from the Midwest and there it is very common not to think of veggies as actual food, because "you can't make the main dish of a meal out of them." Of course, from a Midwestern perspective, a real meal means meat and potatoes. And corn, when in season.
    This is interesting to me, because I am from the Midwest, too. We had meat and potatoes, for sure, but always with a couple of vegetables. And while veggie ONLY meals were almost unheard of, during the summer our dinner was a garden cornucopia... sliced tomatoes and "fresh pickles" (sliced cucumbers in vinegar, water, a little sugar and salt and pepper), sweet corn, baby carrots, green beans, turnips, summer squash. Whatever was ripe, we ate!
  • dvisser1
    dvisser1 Posts: 788 Member
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    I find it interesting, too. Especially the trend with hiding them for their kids.... I really think if you feed your kids a variety from when they are young, they will eat a variety of foods. They may have a picky stage or two, but overall, they will eat it.

    Now, I don't have kids, but I am basing that on me and my brother... my mom made all sorts of veggies - broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, spinach, carrots, peas, lima beans, squash, sweet potatoes... you get the point. As a kid I refused peas and lima beans, and that was ok - as long as I tried them a couple of times. On the days those were part of dinner, there would be another veggie as well (we normally had at least 2 at dinner). I ate everything else... but from the time we were babies we ate these things. We also ate what our parents ate as soon as we were old enough for semi-solid foods.... my mom just didn't season the veggies when she cooked them, any salt was added at the table.
    I am glad that hating veggies is one nutrition obstacle I don't have.... I love them!

    Same here. Growing up in NE Ohio we always had a garden. Very rarely did we not have at least a garden salad with dinner, often times a cooked veg dish as well. In the fall we would often go to a u-pick orchard and pick our own apples, bushels of them. The only thing I remember truly hating as a kid were cooked lima beans (but I will snarf edamame now) and hot cooked beets (cold pickled beets are great on salads now). Tastes do evolve as we age and branch out on our own. I like spicy and bitter flavor components that offset sweet and savory in many of my meals, but that was never part of what I grew up eating because my mom and dad did not like spicy and bitter foods.

    When one of us kids (3 of us) got picky, my parents instituted the "no thank you helping" which was about 1/2 a normal helping. You could say I don't want it, but you still got some and had to eat it. Continued complaining at the dinner table was not tolerated (do you want a spanking with your side of lima beans?) so you quickly learned to just eat it.

    Except the one time mom tried to make liver and onions. Even the dog wouldn't touch it. ughh...... :sick:
  • Rae6503
    Rae6503 Posts: 6,294 Member
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    My kids love raw veggies. Tomatoes, spinach, cucumbers, red and green bell peppers, carrots. The 5 year old even likes broccoli. I don't "hide" them.
  • Rocbola
    Rocbola Posts: 1,998 Member
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    Who else here see's vegetable sand fruits as actual food?! It's just so weird that many people can't imagine vegetables outside the context of a side dish or appetizer.
    They are the ONLY thing that i see as food. Seeds, nuts, whole grains and beans, too, but i eat them rarely.
  • jching29
    jching29 Posts: 163
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    I really abhor parents who go to great lengths to "hide" the vegetables in their kids' food. Man up and make them eat their veggies. If you prepare them well, the kids will like them, and if not, they can make their own gd meals.

    The only times I approve of "hiding" veggies are when it's done alongside regular vegetable eating, such as putting grated beets into brownies. If you're eating vegetables like a person should, having an extra serving of beets will be fine, but not good or bad, it just is. If you don't eat vegetables properly, having a beet hidden inside a chocolate brownie isn't going to do anything good for you at all.
  • momtokgo
    momtokgo Posts: 446 Member
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    I find it interesting, too. Especially the trend with hiding them for their kids.... I really think if you feed your kids a variety from when they are young, they will eat a variety of foods. They may have a picky stage or two, but overall, they will eat it.

    Now, I don't have kids, but I am basing that on me and my brother... my mom made all sorts of veggies - broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, spinach, carrots, peas, lima beans, squash, sweet potatoes... you get the point. As a kid I refused peas and lima beans, and that was ok - as long as I tried them a couple of times. On the days those were part of dinner, there would be another veggie as well (we normally had at least 2 at dinner). I ate everything else... but from the time we were babies we ate these things. We also ate what our parents ate as soon as we were old enough for semi-solid foods.... my mom just didn't season the veggies when she cooked them, any salt was added at the table.
    I am glad that hating veggies is one nutrition obstacle I don't have.... I love them!

    When and if you have kids you might feel differently. I have 3 kids. 2 will eat most veggies. One won't even look at them. We fed them the same way, we offered veggies at a young age, nothing worked. I do hide veggies on her when I can (in muffins, sauces etc) just so she gets them. We also put them on her plate at every meal with the hopes that she will try them. Never happens. She does eat a lot of fruit. It's not always black and white. They will not always eat it, no matter what you do.

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