Hands up if you’ve ever thrown some extra veg into a recipe to help reach your child’ 5-a-day. I know I have!
As parents, we want to do our best. To make sure our kids our healthy and happy. So, if blitzing some extra veg into a sauce makes them healthy (smashing the 5-a-day thank you very much) and happy (because they’re much more likely to eat spinach and courgette blended into a sauce than whole) we’re winning, right?
In this article, I’ll be addressing the subtle but important differences between ‘hiding veg’ and ‘adding veg’ to kids’ foods and providing some context to when this can be helpful or potentially problem-causing.
Consider the child’s attitude to food
Firstly, it’s important to understand what sort of eater your child is. If your child is wary of foods, has a limited number of accepted foods, often refuses anything new or meticulously scrutinises their food for any irregular lump, mark or anomaly, we need to be very careful about ‘hiding’ vegetables (or any other food) in an accepted meal. Although the intention comes from a good place, if we start hiding or disguising foods for these hypersensitive eaters, we risk losing their trust in food.
If they spot some blitzed-up spinach in their plain pasta sauce or chickpeas hiding in their mac n’ cheese we’re on dangerous territory. The risk is they will no longer trust that food (or us!), we lose that accepted food from their repertoire and they become even more wary of all foods. So, our attempt to increase variety and boost veg intake backfires and before we know it our child now accepts less foods than when we started.
If, however, your child is a food lover, isn’t particular about textures, lumps or a change in food appearance and is likely to accept new ingredients when you offer them, we’re on safer ground. For these children, there is less risk that boosting their pasta sauce with extra veg or adding lentils to a pizza base for extra iron, for example, will result in food refusal and can provide additional nutrients without meaning they’ll never eat pasta or pizza again.
We want to be honest about what’s in our kid’s food. There’s no trickery or deceiving going on, nothing’s hidden and we can be openly transparent about the ingredients we’ve used without worrying that this will put them off the food. Think of it as though you are making yourself a smoothie. You could add banana, berries and milk or you could choose to really pimp up that smoothie by adding banana, berries, kale, spinach, ginger and some ground seeds. If you’ll happily accept either and it won’t put you off drinking smoothies again in the future then why not go for the pimped-up version and benefit from some extra variety and nutrients?
The same applies to kids. If you can be honest about the added ingredients and they’re happy with a pimped-up version of foods they like, it’s a bit of a no-brainer. If, however, a pimped-up version of their favourite foods is going to put them off eating it again (pimped up or not) it’s best to steer clear.
Will hiding vegetables increase acceptance of vegetables long term?
Even if your child is not bothered by the added veg in their sauce, pasta or curry, blitzing vegetables into a recipe doesn’t necessarily increase their exposure or acceptance of that vegetable in the long term. If we want children to learn to love vegetables, we need them to see it in its whole form. Of course, there are many other strategies that will support the acceptance of vegetables too but the building blocks start with repeated exposure and role modelling.
If your child sees the food regularly and if you, or others, are eating the foods in front of them, this is a great place to start. When ingredients are hidden, we don’t necessarily acknowledge that they’re there and that all0important exposure is lost. So blending carrots and mushrooms into a sauce might hit the spot in terms of added variety, nutrients and fibre but it doesn’t mean your child is more likely to opt for carrots or mushrooms as a side dish next time you offer it.
Hiding or Boosting?
The main question I would ask you, if you are tempted to sneak some extra veg into your kid’s favourite meal is why are you doing it? Are you secretly hiding the veg or adding it as a quick and convenient way to boost intake?
If you’re hiding veg it because your child is fussy and disguising it in their accepted foods seems like an easy win, I would ask you to stop and consider this carefully. If you’re adding veg as a way of boosting or ‘pimping up’ meals because it provides a quick win nutritionally and it isn’t likely to result in refused food, then go for it.
If you would like some help navigating child feeding and how best to support your child, please feel free to reach out. Book a free, no obligation discovery call here.
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