How do you get your children to eat more vegetables? The vegetable Mummy Quiz

I just made a quick minestrone soup for supper tonight.  One child ate it and asked for more while the other child played with it and said it looked like’vomit’ (my third child who is currently on a school trip would have gagged if I’d tried to serve it to her!).  Why oh why is it so difficult to get children to eat their vegetables??  Are some of the problems caused by us forcing them on our children?

With this in mind I’ve come up with a little quiz to determine which type of vegetable mother (or father) you might be.......

1. You spend hours lovingly slaving over a lasagne for your family.  You proudly serve it to your family only to have the children dissect it, carefully picking out lumps of onion, carrots and celery.  Do you:

• A) Lose your temper, have a good scream at everyone (including your partner ) and storm out the kitchen
  
  
• B) Tell the children that they can have a box of smarties each if they eat the vegetables
  
  
• C) This situation would never happen as you would know to ‘blend’ the bolognese sauce to hide the vegetables

2. There is mutiny at the kitchen table.  Your child(ren) are refusing to eat their peas and you are refusing to let them get down from the table until the peas are finished.  Do you:

• A) Let 30 minutes go past, then give up, let them get down from the table and then pour yourself a glass of wine to steady your nerves
  
• B) Tell them you will pay them 20 centimes for each pea eaten
  
• C) Sit down with your child(ren) and explain gently that Superman/Princesses etc all eat their peas to grow strong/have long hair/white teeth etc and that this is why they need to eat their vegetables.
  
  3) Before arriving at a friend’s house for lunch you give your children the usual lecture on pleases, thank yous and how they must never be rude by telling the host they do not like a certain food.  Your friend serves a casserole with a big bowl of spinach and your children start to complain loudly that they do not like the food.  Do you:

• A) Give your children a hard ‘justwaittillIgetyouhome’ glare and apologise profusely to your friend
  
• B) Whisper in your children’s ears that you will take them to Toys R Us if they eat up
  
• C) This would never happen as your children know how to behave

Answers:

Mostly A’s: Normal vegetable Mummy (or Daddy)

Mostly B’s: Clever but broke vegetable Mummy

Mostly C’s: Smug vegetable Mummy

I will post more ideas on getting children to eat their vegetables next week.  In the meantime here is a recipe for cheat’s minestrone soup, which contains 3 of the 5 a day.  So if you can get your children to eat this without muttering that it looks like vomit you are onto a winner!

Italian - style soup

Fry:  1 chopped onion, 2 chopped celery sticks and 1 chopped carrot for 10 mins in olive oil.  Add 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, 500 ml of veg soup, 2 bay leaves, 2 crushed garlic cloves and 1 tsp dried mixed herbs.  Bring to boil and simmer for 20 mins.  Add 1 400g tin of drained mixed beans and cook for 5 more minutes.  Season.  Add fresh basil, parsley and chives.  Serve with a fresh pesto and grated parmesan cheese.  Enjoy!