January 25, 2010

The Secret's in the Sauce

Vegetables... oh, vegetables. They are such a tricky thing to feed children. The same babies who devoured squash, peas and carrots refuse to even try these foods as toddlers and preschoolers. But I, like many moms before me, have learned the trick to getting picky eaters to try anything. Dipping sauce.
In the beginning, I only used dips for chicken nuggets. Then I noticed when we had nuggets and vegetables, they would actually eat the vegetables if they could dip them. We now go through a bottle of ranch dressing a week and a bottle of barbeque sauce every two weeks. For those of you who haven't tried this, you may be shaking your head in disbelief. Need proof? My daughters will now eat carrots, broccoli, green peppers, celery, snap peas and cherry tomatoes (not a veggie, but they think it is)... as long as they have something to dip them in. In rare instances they'll even agree to use hummus as their dip.
Now I need to figure out what to use as a dip to encourage them to eat fruit. Sometimes they'll agree to dip their fruit in yogurt, but other times they refuse. Fruit is obviously sweeter than vegetables, so most fruits are always a hit, but there are still a few things they're reluctant to try.

5 comments:

Stephanie Manner Wagner said...

Fruit Dipping: whipped cream cheese, yogurt, soynut butter or peanut butter, or even ice cream. Smoothies are also a great way to sneak fruits and veggies into them.

Christina said...

Great idea!

Quadmama said...

Whipped cream is a good one... they LOVE whipped cream!

Anonymous said...

Woooo, there must be some voodoo magic in that ranch dressing! I'm totally trying it on my girls- thanks for the tip :)

maryanne @ mama smiles said...

This is so true - my kids love dips!

Post a Comment