My Fail-Proof Trick To Getting Our Kids To Love Veggies

Raise your hand if your child LOVES to eat their veggies?  Hello?!  Anyone there?

For some of us, it’s not a concern, but for many of us the struggle is real.

One way that we encouraged our children to really develop a love for those crunchy greens is by getting them involved in making veggie packs for the week.  There’s something powerful about creating something and taking ownership of it that creates more excitement – even if I’m just talking about eating your veggies.

Now this doesn’t just apply to our little ones.  I can’t count the number of days that have passed by where I had started the day with best intentions, committed to getting a healthy serving or two of vegetables that day and it just didn’t happen!  Not … enough … time!  You want me to wash, peel and cut those suckers?!  Nope.  I need to grab something I can whip up quick when I’ve got 10 minutes to get lunch on the table or melt down mode will ensue.  So, along came the idea of “veggie packs.”

It’s really very simple.  After your weekly grocery shop, gather your little ones together in the kitchen and start creating.  Choose a variety of veggies, all different colours and textures to make it more fun.  We like to include peppers, mini cucumbers, grape tomatoes and crunchy carrots in our packs.  The sky is the limit!  We use small Ziplock bags to put our veggies in, which we recycle and use again the following week.

Begin by washing your veggies and laying them out on your kitchen island or counter.  We even make a little math lesson out of it by telling our oldest how many of each vegetable we want in each bag.  Then it’s just a matter of putting those healthy greens into each bag.

For our family of 4 we make about 20 bags per week.  This means that each person will grab at least one veggie pack a day to either eat during lunch or take to work.  Our one year old will eat about half a bag at each sitting.

They are perfect if you are having an “on the go” day and want a healthy snack to munch on the car as well.  The whole process only takes us about 20 minutes but makes for a week of quick and  healthy snacks or an addition to lunch.

The veggie packs sit in a pull out drawer in our fridge that is easy to reach for our littles.  We find we have much more space in our fridge as the big bulky bags of veggies are now washed, cut and neatly organized in small ready to grab reusable bags.

A few times we have come downstairs first thing in the morning to find Ava eating a veggie pack for breakfast.  High fives all around!

And, one added bonus; we found the amount of fresh produce wasted was reduced to almost none!  Our veggies aren’t just sitting in the fridge to look nice, they are being eaten and in a timely matter.

I would love to hear if your family uses veggie packs or if you have any other creative ways to get those veggies eaten on a regular basis.