Healthy Food Games For Kids

Three Fun Activities To Help Children Love Vegetables

May 17, 2009 Christine E. Taylor

Get kids excited about healthy eating by playing with food! Your kids will look at vegetables in a whole new way with these games and challenges.

Updated January 26, 2010

Participation is the key to transforming your children into vegetable lovers, and the best way to get children excited about anything is through hands-on play. Here are three fun games and challenges for kids sure to create a positive attitude about colorful, flavorful vegetables.

Rainbow Challenge

The Rainbow Challenge capitalizes on children’s natural love of color.

1. Visit the grocery store or farmers’ market with your kids, and challenge them to choose the most colorful variety of vegetables possible. You may want to set a limit on the number of veggies they can choose, or you’ll wind up with a farmers’ market of your own.
2. When you get home, provide your children with a culinary blank canvas (such as a tortilla or a whole grain pizza crust covered with some tomato sauce) and all of the vegetables they’ve chosen. If you’re going to add cheese to the dish, do it now so the food art isn't covered up.
3. Ask your kids to make the most colorful, creative dish that they can, perhaps making patterns and pictures with the veggies. Encourage them to be imaginative; this doesn’t have to look like any other dish they’ve ever eaten.
4. Bake these works of food art, and enjoy eating them together!

Take pictures of the vibrant dishes your children make. Make it a weekly game, and start a photo album or kitchen gallery.

Guess the Veggie Challenge

1. Prepare several different vegetables in bite-sized pieces (cooked or raw, as appropriate). Choose some that your kids love, some that they’ve been reluctant about, and at least one that they’ve never tried.
2. Blindfold them for a tasting challenge. Whichever child guesses the most mystery veggies wins.

Vegetables with vibrant flavors work best. Try:

• fennel
• cherry tomatoes
• thinly sliced carrots
• cucumbers
• beets
• scallions
• bell peppers
• radishes
• snow peas.

Present the most strongly-flavored vegetables last, and have water ready so that the kids can take a sip between veggies.

Iron Chef Challenge for Kids

1. Fill your kitchen counter or a side table with a variety of pre-cooked, adaptable meal staples: rice, pasta, tortillas, chicken, cheese, soup stock, etc. The older the children involved, the more varied the available food should be.
2. Set up two separate stations with plenty of working room, and divide into teams (kids v. adults, or two teams of one child/one adult).
3. Reveal the mystery vegetable. It can be one the kids eat all the time, or a brand new vegetable they’ve never seen before. If it’s a pretty standard veggie (like tomatoes or beans), encourage them to use it in a new way. If they’ve never eaten it before, allow them to taste it and give them a little bit of information (Can it be eaten raw? What country did it come from?).
4. Quickly go over some basic kitchen safety rules as appropriate for the kids’ ages.
5. Set the timer for 30 minutes, and let the cooking begin! At the end, everyone can enjoy the results. Making dinner doesn’t get more fun than this!

When working with younger children, the grown-ups should serve as assistants by doing the cutting and cooking at their request.

At the end, a judge can declare a winner based on appearance, taste and creativity. If there’s no judge available, try taking pictures to put online, along with notes about how each dish tasted. Then, let grandparents, uncles, aunts, and friends who could not be there serve as competition judges.

For an outdoor version, set up a picnic table with all of the items, and have the grill fired up and ready for the grown-ups to cook food at the kids’ command.

Healthy Food Toys and Games

Reinforce healthy choices by giving children toys and games that revolve around nutritious foods. Don't stock the play kitchen with plastic hamburgers and soda, when kids will enjoy playing with healthful pretend foods just as much. Try incorporating nutrition lessons into children's games like bingo (replacing the shapes or numbers with pictures of broccoli, apples, etc.).

These entertaining nutrition games send the message that vegetables can be exciting, inspiring and delicious. They're another way to make vegetables part of everyday life for children.

Want more ideas for turning kids into vegetable lovers? Try these 4 easy methods, and start seeing healthy changes in your children in a matter of weeks!

The copyright of the article Healthy Food Games For Kids in Kids Activities is owned by Christine E. Taylor. Permission to republish Healthy Food Games For Kids in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Healthy Food Games For Kids

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