Joanne Roach (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. Today is going to be a high speed run through a bunch of ideas for including more fruit and veg into everyday meals without lots of faff. These are taken from a guide I published 10 years ago which included 101 different ways to help kids love fruit and veg and the ideas in this episode are all going to be easy additions to everyday cooking.
This episode is focusing on fruit and veg because that's my area of work and because there's a lot of focus at the moment on how to increase fibre in children's diets and a lot of these ideas obviously will be high in fibre. I appreciate that some listeners will have children who are okay with fruit and veg and have more issues with things like meat intake, textures of things or sauces or combination foods and there will be episodes coming up about those issues too.
Obviously some of these ideas won't apply to you if you don't eat the base meals I'm talking about and if your child currently doesn't accept some of the foods then some of ideas where the food is obvious won't magically make them eat the food but it will work for exposure and familiarity and for other members of the family who do eat the foods. But anyway, hopefully everyone listening will be able to pick up one idea that might be helpful. So here goes.
The first few suggestions are about adding veg in ways which are not obvious. Now we don't want to do hidden or secret vegetables because the research shows that that can erode our kids' trust in us. So we're not hiding it or lying about it, we're just trying to find ways to add in extra variety in ways that actually make the recipe taste as good or better and don't dilute the things we like about the original recipe. If kids see us cooking or want to join in or ask what's in the recipe, we can be upfront about it and we can also ask them to give us honest feedback about the ratios that work, for example asking do they think the balance of soft to chewy or sweet to savoury is better with this amount of added vegetables or should it be a bit more or a bit less next time we try it? That way they get to feedback their preferences in a way which isn't only accept or reject.
So let's get started with some of ways to add in extra veg to existing recipes. The first of these non-obvious additions is to add small amounts of grated wet vegetables into any homemade mince based item such as meatballs, meatloaf, bolognese, burgers or chicken nuggets. Things like courgettes, butternut squash, pumpkin, carrot and even apple can all work really well. Grating them helps them melt away a little more within the recipe and also adds some structure to that loose mince. So these items actually add moisture and little sweetness. Very finely chopped up cooked cauliflower can also work in these recipes.
If your children are more accepting of a wider range of food then things like pre-cooked onions and mushrooms or mashed beans are also really great additions to mince based foods. But if you're in a house where veg is less accepted then a handful of grated courgette or carrot is the safest addition.
If you're trying to reduce your overall meat consumption then replacing some of your mince with mashed tinned green lentils is a really great way to start because they have a similar kind of chewiness to mince in most recipes but we are going to have a specific episode about how to get children to eat more pulses so I will cover that more there.
A similar kind of addition but with wet sauces is if you make curries or stews you can add grated or pureed veg into the sauce and it just thickens it without making much difference to the flavour. Great additions for fibre and thickness without being overpowering are mashed squashes or sweet potatoes, mashed white beans or carrots. Carrots take a lot longer to cook than a lot of other vegetables so if you want them to be soft in the final meal then microwave or steam them first so that they're nice and soft in the finished product. If you are doing a long stew or a slow cooker recipe, then squashes can go in raw but in small pieces and they will more or less melt away. All of these pureed additions add a velvety thickness to the sauce, so they're actually worth doing in their own right.
Pasta sauce is a great way to add in bit of veggie bulk in small doses without it changing the overall feel of the sauce. Purees work better in a smoother sauce, so things like squashes, sweet potatoes, pureed carrot or mashed up beans. They can all add a little bit of extra bulk and up to about 25 % of the volume doesn't seem to change the overall texture too much. If it's a chunkier sauce or if it's going to go on a pizza where there's going to be any chunky toppings then some vegetable texture would also fit in fine, you don't need to puree it. If you just microwave or roast a sweet potato or a butternut squash at the weekend when you get your groceries home and scoop the inside into a Tupperware then you've got some cooked vegetable flesh ready to go you can just mash it with a fork and add it into stuff.
If you're using a white pasta sauce like an alfredo or a cream sauce then white beans or courgette works great. One of the easiest pasta sauces is grated courgettes cooked down for a few minutes and then added to some cream cheese or a cheese sauce. Peel them first if you want to keep the really nice pale colour.
I mentioned white beans a couple of times there and they can be added to a bunch of different things because once they're pureed they don't have much taste of their own and they have a lot of fibre. Tinned cannellini beans are the easiest. They are similar to the soft beans in a tin of baked beans but without the sauce. Great things to add pureed or mashed beans to are guacamole to add in some protein to an already very nutritious dip, cheese sauces, pasta sauces to thicken up your gravy in stew or to add into a thick cream of chicken soup or any creamy soup like a cauliflower cheese soup or a potato chowder would work. You can even add white beans to fruit smoothies. The fruit taste totally overwhelms any beany taste so it's just adding bulk and fibre.
Speaking of smoothies, of course you can get loads of fruit and veggies into smoothies and strong fruit flavours can camouflage lots of less friendly ingredients. But one which my kids really loved was adding avocado into a chocolate milkshake. It makes it thick and creamy, so more like the ice cream shake kind of texture, without adding any taste of avocado and it adds in some great quality fats and fibre too. I'll link in the show notes to one that we always turn to. It must be a soft avocado though to get the creamy texture, but it's quite good for avocados that have started to go over a little bit and are still good but don't look so green and pretty. Avocado is quite famous for being great for making smooth glossy chocolate puddings too and they work really well if your child likes chocolate mousse.
I think you'll probably already know the idea of adding fruit and vegetables to cake, like courgettes or beetroot into chocolate cake recipes, or grated apple, carrot or courgette into sponge cakes. Of course you can also use mashed bananas in baking, but if you find that they overwhelm the other flavours, you can also use apple sauce as an egg and liquid replacer in lots of baking recipes. I'll link to a recipe in the show notes that does this. Generally with baking, you just google cake plus whatever the vegetable is, like courgette, you'll get an alternative recipe, so I won't go into detail here because that's more about intentionally finding recipes which include fruit and veg, and the focus of this episode is ways to add them into things you're already making.
So the last idea for adding variety into something you're already making, mashed potato can carry lots of other mashed vegetables quite well. I have to be honest, if I'm eating a pile of mash like on a gravy dinner, then I don't really want other things mashed in, I would personally rather have a pile of mashed swede next to the pile of mashed potato than have them combined. But some people, including some children, find mashed potato to be too earthy, and for them a sweeter vegetable added into it might actually make it better for them. But the place where it's easiest to mix vegetables into mash is when the mash is an ingredient of a bigger dish, so for example when it's on top of a shepherd's pie, or if it's an ingredient in a waffle or pancake recipe. In those cases you can add up to a third or a half of another mashed vegetable into the potato and it will still work because it's already mixed with other flavours. Celeriac, sweet potato, turnip and swede are all good traditional mixers and the same goes if you make a grated rosti or a bubble and squeak. So that's my ideas for adding veggies into something else.
The next few suggestions are more about finding ways to add in opportunities for exposure and possible eating, which is to provide finger food, fruit and veg at times when children aren't really thinking about eating. Although obviously we're aiming in the long term for children to learn to eat mindfully, there are natural points when we provide snacks when children are otherwise busy and just need some quick and easy food, and if they're doing that anyway, then why not add in some bite-sized fruit and veg as an option? There are a couple of regular opportunities that come to mind.
One is in the car on the way to or from activities when you might give children a cereal bar or another quick snack for some energy, add in some chopped fruit or veg. Obviously this needs to be age appropriate because of choking hazards and not being able to stop the car if children need help with eating, so this is definitely a do your own risk assessment kind of suggestion that is only appropriate for older children who you would already be allowing to eat in the car. Things like carrot sticks, cucumber pieces, berries, banana or snap peas are all easy munching food for children who are on their way to or from somewhere.
Secondly, and in a similar situation, if you provide snacks while children are playing or gaming then the same thing applies. If your child would have been having a snack anyway while they play then just add an easy grab fruit or veg alongside the crackers, biscuits or toast or whatever you were planning to provide. Children will often accept things when they're busy and hungry that they would overthink at other times.
Another good opportunity to just put veg in front of kids while they're inclined to eat is to have crudites and dip on the table when they come to the table while you're still finishing getting dinner ready. Just a few bits of carrots, celery, mange tout or pepper strips with a ranch or a hummus or a ketchup or something you know that they really like can prove irresistible to dip into even if it's only a couple of mouthfuls. It must be left there as totally optional and no comment if they don't eat them. Just have a couple of bits yourself and then get on with serving dinner. People like to do stuff with their hands while they're waiting to eat, which is why breadsticks in restaurants never last long. So make the most of this opportunity while they're waiting for tea.
Another opportunity is to have some fruit on the side of breakfast. Breakfast can be quite rushed so this isn't always doable but if your child is sitting eating cereal then literally four strawberries in a bowl next to their cereal bowl might get eaten too or half an apple already sliced. It could be in the middle of the table if more than one person is sitting. If this proves successful you could also get or make some fruit salad at the start of the week and just have that available for them to spoon into a little side bowl. Lots of kids won't want it on the same plate or bowl as their main food because it's wet. But a small empty bowl next to them with something in reach to put in it or a very small portion of fruit in the bowl like six raspberries or a few pinches of blueberries, might just get scoffed and no harm if they don't.
One last and slightly odd suggestion for adding fruit and veg in is for younger children and it's during imaginative play to use real food. So if they're having a tea party for their teddy bears, have some fruit and veg to serve alongside the imaginary tea. If they're having a picnic or a party in a den, then provide some veggie nibbles or fruit alongside anything else. Some messy play or art activities can use foods as the materials and sometimes these can be edible if the children want to. Obviously this is another time where age and stage is important and young children will need supervision or playing with if they're going to be eating while they're playing And also to make sure that any real food doesn't get put away with the toys and the pretend food. But this is another good way for kids to interact and build familiarity with small amounts of food in a low pressure way, even if they only play with it and they don't eat it.
The aim with all of these ideas is to add in more opportunities for putting fruit and veg in front of children, whether they eat it or not. And the good thing about being able to do that at more times is that each of those times can be small amounts and can carry less physical and emotional weight. If your child ate some extra carrots and sweet potato in their pasta sauce, then it's less important that they didn't want to try the broccoli today. If your child ate some satsuma pieces in the car on the way back from football practice, it's less important that they don't want the pepper slices on top of their pizza. And apart from giving you that reassurance that you're giving them lots of opportunities to eat if they want to, you are normalising the inclusion of fruit and veg everywhere and building their familiarity over time so they might accept it later on down the road even if they don't fancy it today.
And another bonus is that all these things increase the number of opportunities for us as adults to also eat those foods because while we are modelling eating them we are doing our own insides a lot of good. Life with kids can be really busy and we can often forget to look after ourselves so if we increase the number of times we have fruit and veg in front of us too we will inevitably increase our own intake which is good for us.
So hope you might have picked up one idea there that is something you don't currently do. Remember that your child will eat many thousands of meals while they live with you and no one meal is going to be the one that suddenly magically turns them into some kind of super eater. So just increasing the availability of a variety of food in easy and natural ways over time is more important than making one perfectly balanced Instagrammable dinner. As I said, we'll have episodes down the line about how to help your child to eat other things like meat, fish, pulses and sauces with input from experts, but this one was my contribution for my work with fruit and veg.
Let me know if there is any food type or group that you would love an episode on from one of my wonderful dietitian friends and I'll see what I can do. I'll be back on Thursday with another episode so I hope to see you then and in the meantime, happy eating!
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