This food encourages children to eat vegetables

You have children who are reluctant to to eat vegetables ? To avoid forcing them or dropping vegetables, there is a simple tip, revealed by scientists in a study, to encourage children to eat more vegetables. Here’s which one.

Add this food to their plate to make them eat vegetables

In this study, researchers looked at how to encourage children to eat more vegetables at canteen, but the tip also applies to the home. In this work, the experts followed children aged 7 to 13, who ate a canteen menu consisting of chicken nuggets, mixed peas and carrots but also semi-skimmed milk and ketchup. The dish was accompanied by bread or potatoes, in different forms. For dessert, the children were treated to applesauce.

“We wanted to learn more about how school meal offerings can influence children’s eating behavior and potentially encourage greater vegetable consumption. […] Getting children to eat vegetables is always a challenge.” explains the lead author of the study, Professor Gene Ahlborn, specializing in nutrition, dietetics and food sciences at Brigham Young University, in the United States.

If the children’s meals were identical, it would appear that replacing regular potatoes with the same food in the shape of a smiling smiley face would have encouraged the children to eat more vegetables.

Serve all foods on the same plate

Indeed, the researchers’ observation is as follows: the children ate more peas and carrots when they were served with these smiling potatoes rather than with bread or simply seasoned potatoes.

To measure the effect of these potatoes, the scientists served them on the same plate as the vegetables, then separately. Their effect only works if they are served on the same plate. “Potatoes not only add nutrients, like potassium, directly to the plate, but they can also encourage children to explore other vegetables they are served with and thus help them get closer to their nutritional needs global” concludes the expert.