We Eat Veggies

I was at the park with the girls the other day. They were running around, each with a cucumber in one hand and a hunk of bell pepper in the other, happily munching and playing. I overheard some parents nearby swapping stories of how difficult it is to get young children to eat healthy food. Then one mom asked me how on earth I got my kids to eat vegetables. I think if the only choices children are offered are healthy choices, children won't turn up their noses at fresh vegetables or other healthy food.

I hear all the time things like, "All my little one will eat is mac and cheese and sugary treats!" Hmmm. If I offered my girls mac and cheese and sugary treats I bet that's all they'd ask for, too. That's my challenge from here on out - to offer my girls ONLY healthy foods. I don't want to be too extreme, so we are going to have ice cream this summer and all of that, but it will be homemade ice cream, sweetened just a little with honey or stevia. I can already tell that the hardest part will be to get the grandmas on board! I am trying to find the healthy way to make everything, and in doing that we end up learning all about spices, herbs, flowers, and other plants. Here's our homemade root beer, made from sarsaparilla, fennel, cinnamon, fizzy mineral water and honey:


Anyway, I didn't want to sound too smug and obnoxious, so at the park that day I gave the other end of the explanation as to why my girls eat veggies: they garden! They grow this stuff, and they're proud of it. When they want a snack, they run out to their garden and pick a hunk of cauliflower or broccoli... or kale. The part I try not to rub in other moms' faces is that these vegetables taste good to them because they are not comparing them to the taste of this morning's cupcake, or this afternoon's packaged mac n cheese. (They do get mac n cheese, of course, but it is made with brown rice noodles and bone broth, and has a sauce made from blended kale and parmesan, with nutritional yeast and avocado on top... oh wait, I was trying not to sound smug!)