Trick Your Picky Eater

By Bonnie Owens on March 12th, 2009

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Usually my boys are pretty good at eating their vegetables. But there are those days when all they want to eat is macaroni and cheese or pizza. Rather than fighting with them, I just give them what they want. Everyone deserves to splurge a little, even kids. But with their little bodies growing so much right now, I still feel obligated to nutritionalize their junk food. Here are a few ways to sneak veggies and fiber into your child’s ”kid food” without them even realizing it.

Puree spinach and mix it into their pizza or spaghetti sauce.

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Puree butternut squash and mix it in with their mac n’ cheese.

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Add minced zucchini squash and mushrooms to any kind of ground meat. I use it in taco meat, lasagna meat, enchiladas, meatloaf and spaghetti meat sauce.

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Add flaxseed meal to your chicken nugget breadcrumbs before coating the chicken.

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Grind up a high fiber cereal like Fiber One in a food processor. Add it to your chicken nugget breadcrumbs before coating.

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If your little one like to dip their chicken nuggets in honey, try replacing it with apple butter. It has the same sweetness with a lot more fiber. My kids started to like dipping their nuggets in apple butter so much, that soon they were dipping everything in apple butter. It turned out to be a good way to get them to try new things. I just dipped it in apple butter and they would eat it. You can also mix equal parts of apple butter and mustard for a “honey” mustard sauce.