Give kids a chance to like fresh, living foods. Beyond the regular finger foods of carrot and celery sticks, expose them to tasty salads. It's ok. Let them play with their food. The other night I served my 6-year-old some rice pasta and marinara sauce along with a small bowel of cabbage, carrot, and cilantro salad (no dressing). After only 2 bites of the pasta, she literally pushed her bowl aside and grabbed her bowl of salad. Gobbled it down and had 2 more helpings! This is now one of her favorites! "I could sing my mouth is so happy!" she told me.
So how do you get kids to like living salads?
- Expose them to the salad at high-hungry times (after physical activities, snack times, before meals). So what if they fill up before dinner... it's the best thing they can eat!
- Eat living salads yourself, and often (do as I do, not as I say)
- Make games of it: "Are you a rabbit?? Here's your munchy, crunchy meal!"
- Ask them intriguing questions: "Can you tell the difference between the red and green cabbage?"
- Constant exposure pays off. It may take 1 or 250 times before they'll try it, but persistence pays off, especially when they are hungry. It becomes a "known factor" to them. So keep it visible!
- Be Creative and let them gravitate towards their natural instincts to eat living food.
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