Many parents have challenges getting their kids to eat veggies and other healthy foods. Those of us with children who have sensory issues have special difficultiies. Our children actually gag and often can't keep the food down. We'd like some creative ideas and would like to ask for your help. How do you hide or disguise the nutritious foods?

A neighbor mixes mashed cauliflower into his mashed potatoes (he makes this while his son is in school or busy w/homework).

Grandma hid wheat germ in yummy muffins, oatmeal and anywhere else she thought she could get away with - she made homemade granola...Yummy.

A lady in the park the other day puts honey and a little olive oil (with garlic and onion, which I can't do due to allergies) in kale, spinach and other greens she sautes. She says the kids eat it like candy and she doesn't use a lot of honey.

Your ideas?

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Food is a huge problem for us and I wish I had a secret to post. DS only eats the following:

Strawberries, Steak MR, small pieces of chicken, french fries, kosher hot dogs, cinnamon toast, waffles. No sauces, nothing on the foods it has to be served pure.

That is his entire diet along with hot chocolate milk which I use carnation instant breakfast to boost up the nutritional intake.

A really simple thing at our house is tiny bites and I mean tiny. Ones that it's not even necessary to chew. I also try one new thing a day. Just a taste nothing more is required. Sometimes we find a food that is tolerable most times not. If we don't vomit ot gag from it I call it a success even if we end up spitting it out. It is a requirement from the oldest ones that there will be not bad comments or faces. Some of our odd discoveres are real lemons, limes and grapefruit. Youngest 2 DDs will suck the juice out and sometimes eat the pulp. Whole flax is another thing, they chew it up and eat it. Makes a mess to eat it because it is so small but very well worth it. Youngest DD will eat pancakes plain sometime with smooth peanut butter but never syrup.

Quick cook barley plain :hurl: is sometimes doable. Plain noodles in various odd shapes, steamed broccoli and cauliflower plain steamed to a certain doneness. We are trying to find a tart/sour dipping sauce to broaden our food choices. It's just trial and error and then try again later on. I just try one small bite & we never force.

We learned our lesson with "hiding" food. We tried it with ds and he found it and still to this day will not eat that food (or the food I tried to hide). He still takes all sandwiches apart and checks everything out to make sure there isn't anything else in there. Mabye he is the extreme, but I just thought I should share.

Great idea for a sticky posst.

Disclaimer : We have in no way mastered this issue at all. It's constant struggle with ds but I wanted to share the few things we do and hopefully others will too so we can all learn from each other.

Muffins. We rotate making carrot, apple, and banana muffins. I still can't get past the idea that I'm basically giving him cake for breakfast but at least it has some fruit inside.

100% pure juice. If I can get him to drink juice (which isn't often) I make sure it's 100% pure juice. I also heard that grape juice was very healthy / nutrient dense, so I try to give him one glass of 100% pure (nothing added except Vit C) grape juice every day.

Popsicles. I make my own and I make them with chocolate or strawberry milk (I can't get him to drink milk in any liquid form) or 100% pure juice. He won't drink OJ but he will eat it in popsicle form.

Expensive fruit. Fresh out of season blueberries go against my frugal and my environmental nature. They arrived all the way from South America. But if fresh blueberries or fresh strawberries are what he'll eat then I spend the extra money on them.

Mulit- vitamin. It took a while to find one he liked, but he has a "Complete Vitamins and Minerals (- says that on the packaging) every day.

Whole wheat. Because we started early - this one is easy. We've only ever had whole wheat bread and pasta. He didn't like white bread when he tried it because he had never had it before.

Names: Asparagus became dragon tails. Broccoli became trees. It worked well at 3-6. Not so much anymore at 8.

Cheese sauce. Things go down much smoother with cheese sauce. We may be able to get one piece of broccoli down with cheese sauce but at least it's one more piece than nothing.

Pizza. Nutritionists say that people should be having 10 Tbsps of cooked tomato sauce every week. Cooked / processed tomatoes are very nutrient dense. Ds doesn't like sauce on his pasta but he will eat pizza. So I make it homemade and put extra sauce, which I make from scratch with tomato paste (no chunks) and olive oil, salt & pepper. A little extra cheese and 2 pieces twice a week and he's had his 10 Tbsps along with a milk product.

They say kids should be having 5 servings of fruit or veggies a day. We are very lucky if we can get in two. We're trying to have a goal of 3 - one per meal but we're not there yet.

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Mom to dd (age 9) and ds (age 11)
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I have a dd who is very picky as well. I do know that you can add vegetables like carrots and celery to spaghetti sauce, then process in a food processor to make it a smooth texture. The girls love to dip their fruit in yogurt, plain, vanilla or lemon-flavored.

You can also add things like cooked greens, carrots, celery, and other veggies to meatloaf. You can even add finely chopped walnuts to loaves. Sprinkle ground flax seeds on everything. I add some to my pancake batter for additional health benefits.

Anytime you bake something, replace half the white flour for WW or WW pastry flour. Even oat flour, things like that contain more nutrients.

If your kids like peanut butter, try almond butter for additonal nutritional benefits.

Oh, and try smoothies! You can sneak lots of things into a smoothie. You could make one with just strawberries, milk, yogurt and ice cubes or you could add ground flax seed, toasted wheat germ (would make it a little gritty), lots of other fruits and juices, nut butters, etc.

If your kids like chocolate pudding, here's a recipe my friend gave me from the cookbook "RAW, The UNcook Book" by Juliano.

EZ Pudding
1 cup pure maple syrup (which does have calcium in it) or 1-1/2 cups dates
1/2 cup raw carob or cocoa powder
2 medium avocados

Now I know the ingredients seem a little odd, but, trust me, the result is very smooth and creamy. I used dates and cocoa powder when I made it.

Throw the ingredients into a blender or food processor, and blend well. Stop a couple of times during the process to scrape down the sides to be certain all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Blend until fluffy. If you use dates, rather than maple syrup, add a little orange juice to the blender, or soak the dates in OJ to soften them up a bit, before using. ENJOY!


I like the idea of adding a little honey to greens though....may have to try that the next time I make sauteed collard greens!

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Trader Joes has some whole wheat pasta and four cheese pasta sauce that is very, very good.

Regarding those who won't drink milk: My son always loved his milk warm, in a bottle or sippy cup. After we did away with those, he would occasionally drink warm milk from a cup, but then stopped. He absolutely refused cold milk unless it was chocolate milk. Well, better chocolate milk than none at all.

However, he loves donuts, which we rarely get. A couple of months ago, we got some and I demonstrated my favorite way to eat the storebought ones (Krispy Kreme went out of business) was to dip them in milk to make them more moist. He liked it. Then, when done, I told him how drinking the leftover milk tasted like donut- milk, like the vanilla milk he got occasionally. He tried it. From then on, he has been willing to drink cold milk! I started putting a little vanilla extract in, then weaned down. His first choice is still chocolate milk, but he no longer refuses white milk if that's his only other option.

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Hmmm... I don't know if any of these would work for anyone else b/c I have just discovered my kids eat quite a range of things compared with some other kids ((beating the dead horse that was my "picky eating" post...)

*I make different pancakes which my kids devour without butter, syrup or any topping. Included in the batter: canned pumpkin, applesauce, mashed or diced banana, blueberries, flax meal, oats, egg, coconut oil, shredded coconut sometimes, and perhaps some other things. I don't always add the shredded coconut, and if we are out of something I just don't put it in. I make pancakes from scratch a couple times per week then freeze for snacks or "grab-n-go" trips in the car.

* I make salmon patties from canned salmon, with egg and a few bread crumbs, a little mayo, some lemon juice, flax if you want it, some frozen chopped spinach if you are inclined, and sometimes some finely shredded carrot and onion.

* I make a chicken/rice soup with carrots, onion, potato, sweet potato and maybe one thing I'm forgetting. If it's cut small enough, it cooks down and is hardly noticeable or recognizable.

* I used to toss a handful of frozen spinach in my kids' smoothies (strawberry, banana, blueberry) but they are not into smoothies right now and are wasting my good ingredients! I'll try them again in awhile.

* I make pumpkin bars with raisins, egg, pumpkin (obviously he he). Sometimes I'll sprinkle in some flax.

* I dice up green/red peppers and onions for in spaghetti or scrambled eggs. The kids sometimes complain when they are in the eggs b/c they can see it... but when I diced up kale the other day and put it in their scrambled eggs, all 3 boys devoured the eggs without complaint! Imagine that!!!! I dice up ham sometimes, but we don't eat much ham b/c of nitrates and nitrites.

* When I juice veggies (kale, rainbow chard, beets, collard greens, turnips, parsnips, carrots, apples, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, + more...) I pour a SMALL amount in the bottom of 2 cups and my 2 year old's bottle. Then I pour apple juice until it's about 85% AJ and 15% veggie juice. I have my older boys race to see who can drink it fastest and win a reward etc... they guzzle it. It's harder for my 4.5 yo... he struggles (it's bitter!) My 2yo drinks his from the bottle, then comes and asks for MORE every time! Once, at the pediatrician, she asked why he had a green thing on his tongue! It was a tiny piece of kale!!! I about died laughing... (BTW that's one reason I love his bottle... he'll just drink and drink and not pay attention to the fact that it's vegetable juice!!! He would never drink like that from a sippee...)


Sorry if mine are a bit "out there"... I make my kids eat a lot of "weird" things.
If I think of others, I'll post them!!!!!

Hi everyone...special thanks to Desertmom for pointing out this little hidden thread(at least for me anyway-don't know how I missed it )and the invite to stop by.

I remember years ago on date line or 20/20 ,some show like that,they did some sort of survey on kids eating and the one thing thats always stuck in my mind that Ive used a couple times with things...is food coloring.Ganted it wont work on everything...but it will on certain things...and there's NO flavor to food coloring.(a little boy might be more apt to try egg salad if it's BLUE)

A friends son years ago would eat mashed potatoes with finely grated raw carots in it because she told him it was shredded cheese.

I know most kids may not be into cole slaw but if you have one that is...try making it a broccoli slaw....looks very simlar and is WAY better for you.

Their is obviously nothing you can't do with a muffin...but you can also add alot of that stuff to even a Jiffy cornbread mix...chopped broccoli,shredded carrots etc.

You can make fritters also.my kids always like those cause they look kinda similar to bit size pancakes...make em with carrots ,zucchini,corn---let em dunk them in sour cream or ketchup.

If your kids usually will drink smoothies but are out of that craze...its summer-make popsicles out of them now.

Make frozen bananas...roll them in something the kids like-nuts is standard but you can get creative.(granola )

You can also add grated carrot to anything meat realated(Alot of people specifically add it to meatloaf-helps keep it moist )

granted noone wants to feed their kids a bunch of sugar but you can always hide an extra veggie in a chocolat cupcake....everyone's heard of choc/zucchini cake.Instead of frosting use powdered sugar...cut out a web design or something your child could relate too.

I'll barin storm on this some more and see what else I can come up with and hunt some recipes.

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5 pounds potatoes, peeled and quartered
3 c cauliflower florets
4 cloves garlic
1 large carrots, chopped
1/2 c skim milk
3 Tbs butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Boil potatoes, cauliflower, garlic and carrots. Cook until potatoes are tender but still firm, about 15 minutes. Drain. Add the milk, butter, salt and pepper. Beat until smooth.


(this serves 8-12 so you may wanna 1/2 recipe)

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