“Participation Turns Kids Into Vegetable Eaters” discusses how to get your children excited about healthy foods by growing, cooking and shopping for them. This article will teach you 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. 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.
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. Ask your kids to make the most colorful, creative dish that they can, even 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.
Then, bake these works of food art. 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
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. 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, asparagus, cucumbers, beets, scallions, bell peppers, radishes or snow peas. Present the most strongly-flavored vegetables last, and have water ready so that the kids can take a sip between veggies.
Mini Iron Chef Challenge
Set 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. Set up two separate stations with enough working room, and divide into teams (kids v. adults, or two teams of one child/one adult).
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?). Quickly go over some basic kitchen safety rules as appropriate for your kids’ ages.
Then, set the timer for 30 minutes, and let the game begin! 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 be the 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.
These entertaining nutrition games send the message that vegetables are exciting, creativity-sparking, and delicious. At the end, everyone can enjoy the results. Making dinner doesn’t get more fun than this!
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For more ways to raise veggie-lovers through simple, straightforward daily techniques, read Everyday Changes Create Vegetable-Loving Kids.
You may also want to try health-oriented games and toys, such as Food Pyramid Bingo and Lil Chefs Cooking Healthy Snacks Set.
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