Eat your vegetables! It’s the endless battle that all parents face. Do we hide the vegies? Put them in plain sight? Serve them raw? Cook them? Deep fry them and pass them off as chips? With three kids, I feel like I’ve tried EVERYTHING! So here are the five things I've tried that have worked for me.

This post is in collaboration with Woolworths

5 ways to get kids to eat their veggies

Grow your own food

Having a vegetable garden has made the world of difference with Tully. She loves gardening and growing food and she will eat the things she grows. She would never eat tomatoes but, since we planted our Woolworths Discovery Garden tomato seedlings in 2019 and they grew into a tomato plant, she loves them! She loves going out to check the plants and see what’s growing. The Woolworths Discovery Garden plants really kicked off her love of gardening so she was so excited to see they were back in the shops. We have started our collection again and they are growing already!

Cook with kids

If your kids see how food is made, and help make it, they become a lot more invested in eating it. Tully makes dinner with her dad once a week and she loves it. They research the recipe and she buys the food and helps cook. So far, she has been willing to try everything she has cooked, even if it’s not one of her ‘regular’ kid dinners.

Shop with kids

Why would a kid want to eat something when they don’t really know what it is? Taking your kids to the fruit and veggie section of the supermarket and letting them touch and learn about the food is a great way to get them to eat it. We show Tully different types of fruit and vegetables, how to tell if they are ready to eat and let her choose some she might like to try. So often now, our food comes pre prepared but it’s important that kids learn about what they are eating.

Serve them a range of vegetables, in different ways

You can serve vegetables in a number of ways to make them a bit more appealing. Try tempura, a Japanese light batter. Kids love battered food, so give them veggies served the same way. Lots of kids might not like the texture of some veggies, like peas being too squishy. But there is no reason kids can’t eat their veggies frozen if they want. Lots of kids love frozen peas and corn because it changes the texture entirely. Tully loves raw carrots, but she also loves them cooked, mixed with honey and butter. This gives them a sweeter flavour that might appeal more to some kids. Dipping them is also a great way to get kids to eat vegetables, because kids love to dip! They can dip in plain yogurt, various dips or event avocado.

Variety!

If you want kids to eat a larger range of vegetables, they need to see them first. Try serving a plate of chopped, fresh veggies on the table for every meal, with a variety of things. Try carrot, capsicum, tomato, corn, celery, cucumber, raw broccoli. Kids need to try something ten times before they like it, so if you make it readily available they are more likely to try it!

I hope these tips help you get the kids enjoying their veggies! You can try your very own vegetable garden with Woolworths Discovery Garden. They are available now in all Woolworths stores and are free with every $30 spent. There are 24 herbs, vegetables and flowers to collect this year, with 21 of the seedlings supporting bee pollination! For more information visit https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/discover/garden