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My two young daughters are pretty good when it comes to eating, but I must say that it becomes challenging to try and feed them balanced meals every single day.  I feel very proud on the days when I was able to be creative and provide them with a great-tasting and healthy meal.  Here are a few quick solutions to include vegetables in your kids’ diets, especially for those children who are picky eaters that would rather think they are not eating vegetables.

Shredded Zucchini – I use zucchini on many things.  One of my kids’ favourite meals are cheese rice cakes.  I make these whenever I have leftover rice (or pasta).  I beat a couple of eggs, add milk, cheese and the secret ingredient – shredded zucchini.  Peel the zucchini and it will be even better disguised from your picky eaters.  I fry them up like an omelette and my kids love them, while I’m happy that they are having a nutritious meal.  Shredded zucchini is also great in muffins and breads (my favourite zucchini bread recipe is from 101cookbooks).

Shredded Carrots - Whenever I make spaghetti meat sauce, I shred a few carrots, very thinly, and throw them into the sauce.  Even my husband doesn’t notice there are carrots in the sauce when I serve this meal.  The carrots get disguised with the colour of the tomato sauce.  Shredded carrots are also great in soups – my kids love chicken noodle soup, so I just shred a couple of carrots and throw them in while I’m cooking the soup.

Rice & Lentils - Although lentils are not a vegetable (they are a legume), I feel very good when I get my kids to eat some as they are packed with iron and lots of other goodness.  I have a great way of including lentils into a meal – lentil & rice casserole.  You can go low on the lentils so your kids don’t necessarily notice the lentils, but once you’ve baked the casserole, the taste is so great that they won’t even ask what those little brown spots are.

Hope this makes dinner time a little easier!

Maria

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I am (not very anxiously) awaiting the day that I need to trick my baby into eating healthy foods.  So far she doesn’t have much choice but also she hasn’t yet been exposed to the world of candy, ice creams and fried things.  From what I hear from other moms, though, most kids will go through a stage when anything green or healthy is yucky and the only way to get them to eat them is to negotiate with them a sugary reward at the end of a meal.  So besides buying organic produce, it looks like one must search for healthy recipes that don’t necessarily seem that way! 

Baby and Me Organically, an online store that provides natural and environmentally friendly products for children and pregnant women, has a couple of fantastic kid friendly recipes.  Their ‘Mouth Watering Brownies‘ recipe features no butter, no dairy and are high in fibre, with ingredients such as flax seeds, cinnamon and whole wheat flour.  I think I’ll make a batch of those for myself!

Baby and Me Organically’s list of products include environmentally friendly gear for carrying meals and drinks, herbal cold and flu soothers, first aid homeopathic medicine, vitamins, feeding bottles, and all-natural products for expectant mothers. 

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