Fun and Creative Ways to Add Vegetables to Your Child's Diet

It seems that a common worry among mothers is whether or not their children are getting enough vegetables in their diet. I don't know about you, but I have plenty of other concerns without worrying about this common diet problem.

I was actually blessed with good eaters. My boys ate any food put before them and I never worried about their diet. Until, that is, my oldest turned three. From the amount of food he ate, it seemed he was on an actual diet! Not much food passed his lips, and vegetables were the first diet staple to go. I had to get creative to get him to eat the foods necessary to a healthy diet.

Here are some ways you can add vegetables into food your little ones will like, and improve their diet.

Who doesn't love cupcakes? You can easily add zucchini to a child's diet by folding some shredded (and squeezed dry) zucchini into chocolate cupcake batter. Ice as you normally would and you have a classic fun food while getting some veggies into the diet.

Another suggestion for getting some veggies in is to sneak them into pasta. Pasta is a staple in the diet of most small children. It's easy to get veggies into this kind of food - add some frozen green peas to mac and cheese, grated zucchini and/or carrots into spaghetti sauce, make a veggie lasagna, or add broccoli or spinach to an alfredo sauce. You can also add any combination of veggies to pasta salad. What a great way to pump up the nutrition in this food and get even more veggies in the diet.

Something else I like to do to add veggies into my boys' diet is plain old veggies and dip. Our favorite dip is homemade hummus. It's so easy (and cheap) to make from dried chickpeas. Now you've got veggies for dipping, and the dip is a veggie too! You can make a similar dip with green peas or navy beans. A delicious way to get nutritious food in a snack form.

Here's yet another fun way to increase the vegetable portion of your child's diet: make veggie sail boats. Cut lengths of celery and fill with cream cheese or peanut butter. Use a thin carrot stick for a mast and a sliver of bell pepper threaded onto the carrot stick as a sail. Fun food!