Hiding Veggies in Food For Toddlers? How to Help Your Picky Eater Eat
Have you ever felt desperate to get your toddlers to eat vegetables? So desperate that you’ve tried hiding veggies in food to get your kids to eat them?
If so, you’re not alone!
Many parents I’ve worked with commonly struggle with this particular issue: a picky child who wants nothing to do with anything that smells, tastes or remotely looks like a vegetable in any form. This is where parents across the country are nodding their heads in agreement. Having a child outright refuse to eat vegetables can be both frustrating and concerning.
If you’ve been in this boat with your own child, you’ve likely tried every trick under the sun to get more veggies into your kiddo. From bribing to baking zucchini into muffins and everything in between, you might feel like you’re coming undone in the veggie meal time battle and out of ideas.
Hiding veggies in food is one of the most common ways I find parents resorting to getting vegetables into their kids’ diets. It seems like the less painful route, right? Without your children knowing, they’ll be ingesting a healthy dose of veggies, unbeknownst to anyone but YOU. It might feel like a small victory - getting in a whole serving of some kind of vegetable into your child who refuses to eat is no easy feat.
And while you might have achieved a short-term goal of getting more veggies into your child, at what cost?
How Hiding Vegetables Can Break Trust
The reality is that while hiding vegetables into your children’s food can seem like your ticket out of picky eating, it’s not without potential consequences.
What do I mean by this exactly?
In general, many kids are suspicious eaters, especially toddlers.
Some kids enjoy trying and eating a wide variety of foods. But a majority of kids go through a period of time where they become more aware of their food and their ability to choose what they will and won’t eat. Typically, we see this start to happen around toddler years, where children are developing more of a sense of autonomy and independence from their parents.
What we sometimes fail to remember is that eating is a skill that children are learning to develop.
Trying foods that are new and unfamiliar is usually a process that takes time and multiple steps, but in keeping with our agenda of how we think our kids should eat, we often prematurely push them into unrealistic eating expectations.
The truth is, many kids have a harder time with vegetables for multiple reasons.
Generally, the textures and tastes of vegetables are more complex compared to other foods. Some children who are more selective eaters or with sensory sensitivities may find vegetables more challenging to eat. A child refusing to eat vegetables is often misinterpreted as a child being picky or selective, when in reality, it’s normal and expected child eating behavior.
But this is where parents tend to get concerned and overreact to otherwise normal child eating patterns.
After multiple attempts and tries to get a child to eat vegetables, many parents throw in the towel and begin to feel desperate to get any bit of veggies into their kid. This is where hiding veggies in foods seems like a suitable solution.
Here’s the thing though.
If you have a child that’s already suspicious of food or who’s going through a developmental phase where food may be more challenging, this can backfire really quick. If your children discover what you’ve hidden in their food or realize they’ve been tricked to eat something against their will, this will likely only increase their suspicion around food.
Even worse, hiding veggies in food can cause your child to distrust you, especially around food, which can damage the trusting feeding relationship you want to be building with your child.
Even when done with good intentions, trying to manipulate your child to eat in a way that she may not be ready to eat can have far-reaching consequences. Not allowing a child to eat and explore food on her terms and prematurely force her into a timeline that she’s not ready yet can actually cause her to develop aversions to the very foods you want her to eat (in this case - vegetables).
I’ve worked with many mothers who dislike certain vegetables to this day because they were forced to eat them as a child.
And I can hear the objections: “But if I’m hiding the vegetables in a way they can’t discover or possibly know, what’s the harm?”
This is where I think you have to look closely at your own hidden agenda. What are your goals for your child when it comes to food? Do you want her to eat vegetables at the cost of potentially causing distrust around food? Or do you want her to build a positive relationship with food and her body?
If the latter, you may need to leave your own feeding agenda at the door in order to create space for your child to learn about food on terms that feel safe for her.
Hiding vegetables might achieve a short term goal (AKA - Getting your child to eat veggies) but it’s sacrificing the more important long term outcomes - helping your child feel confident with food and eating).
Ideally, a more helpful goal is to create an environment where your child feels safe learning about a variety of foods you’re introducing in the home.
Only in the context of a safe eating environment will your child build confidence to try foods that are more challenging, like vegetables. But if your child discovers that vegetables are being hidden in her food, or in effect, she’s being forced to eat something without full knowledge of what she's eating, it’s communicating the message to your child that her environment is not safe for learning to eat.
Sneaking vegetables into food can be seen as deceptive and manipulative - even when done with the best of intentions.
It’s more about how your child would interpret these actions, and no matter how good your intentions may be, these behaviors are communicating the concept that food is unsafe and that caregivers can’t be trusted.
There’s also a thought that sneaking veggies in other foods will make those foods “healthier”, but again, this is sacrificing the big picture outcomes of health. If your child feels unsafe at the dinner table, it doesn’t matter what you’re serving for dinner - your child is going to have a harder time eating.
I’m here to tell you there’s a better way.
There’s a more effective way to help your child enjoy a variety of foods that support her overall growth and development, and more importantly, a positive relationship with food and her body.
No sneaking or hiding vegetables included!
Misguided Concerns About a Child’s Nutrition
Sometimes, misguided concerns around nutrition can lead parents to feeding practices that may worsen the feeding problems at hand. I typically see this happen with kids who may be more picky or selective eaters.
For example, if you have a child that is more selective with food and who dislikes eating vegetables, you may become concerned her overall nutrition and health are suffering as a result of her minimal vegetable intake.
This concern can lead you to engage in certain feeding practices in an attempt to quell your anxieties around your child’s overall nutrition and health. You may begin hiding pureed vegetables into the foods your child may eat, or you might try to coerce your child into eating bites of vegetables.
Again, while you may be doing these things with good intentions, these feeding practices may actually worsen your child’s selective eating or cause her to develop aversions to the foods you’re trying to get her to eat (in this case, vegetables).
Research has found pressure to eat feeding tactics, like bribing and coercing a child to eat, as well as more subtle ways of pressuring a child to eat via hiding food, can actually increase pickiness and generate greater refusal around the pressured foods. This means your child may be less likely to eat those foods long-term or down the road. Truthfully, I’ve never met an adult who ever ended up loving something they were forced to eat as a child.
But as you can see, these feeding practices are influenced by FEAR.
Anxiety around your child’s health or nutrition can trigger fear-based feeding tactics that may backfire in the long run and actually worsen any feeding challenges your child may be experiencing, like picky or selective eating.
Addressing the underlying anxieties you may have in regards to feeding your child is important in order to move from a place of fear to trust. Children are also inclined to pick up on a parents’ anxiety around food. So if you’re feeling anxious about how your child’s eating, your child is likely also going to feel anxious about food.
Even in the face of behavioral, medical, or sensory issues, feeding challenges are happening in the context of the feeding relationship between children and their primary caregivers. So if there is tension, anxiety and stress between you and your child during mealtimes, this may be a contributing factor in how your child is eating and feels about food.
Addressing your own concerns around your child’s overall health and nutrition can be helpful in order to create a more trusting feeding relationship between you and your child.
So let’s look specifically at the concern around vegetable intake and how it affects your child’s overall nutritional status.
Vegetables, in general, are great sources of fiber and many micronutrients that work to support your child’s overall growth and development. The important thing to remember here is that vegetables are not the ONLY food sources that can contribute to your child’s overall fiber and micronutrient intake throughout the week.
Fruit have a similar nutrient profile to vegetables, including a higher fiber content and many of the micronutrients that are also in vegetables.
We tend to think of fruits and vegetables as separate food groups. However, I like to tell parents to lump them together. So if you consider the amount of fruit and vegetables your child eats throughout the week (instead of just vegetables alone), your child may actually be intaking more of this food group than you originally thought.
It’s also important to understand the serving sizes of fruits and vegetables that help your child meet her overall micronutrient needs.
The amount of fruit and/or vegetables your child needs are actually much smaller than you might anticipate. For example, 3 medium sized strawberries would be enough to meet your child’s Vitamin C intake for the day. The bottom line here is that the amounts of fruits and vegetables your child may need to support their overall micronutrient intake is likely much smaller than you might think.
It’s also helpful to keep in mind that you can’t really assess your child’s overall nutrition intake in one meal.
Any one given meal wouldn’t be an accurate snapshot of your child’s overall health.
Many parents worry that because their children are not eating vegetables or fruit at each meal means nutrient deficiencies may be adding up.
But really, what’s more important are patterns and how your child eats over time. Kids are more likely to get what they need nutritionally over the course of weeks, not necessarily in one 24-hour period. Research shows that when taking a respectful approach to feeding our kids and not pressuring them to eat, they’re more likely to get what they need nutritionally over the course of time.
If you’re concerned about your child’s nutrition and perceived deficiencies, you might consider getting a nutrition analysis with a pediatric dietitian. This can also help clear any fears or concerns you may have. If you’re worried about your child’s growth and development, be sure to check in with your pediatrician as well.
Examining your fears concerning your child’s vegetable intake can help you quell any unfounded anxieties about your child’s nutrition.
This is necessary in order for you to let go of micromanaging your child’s food intake and to create space for them to explore food on a timeline that feels safe and comfortable. Additionally, if you’re able to let go of any unnecessary stressors around your child and how she eats, you’ll be in a better position to focus on the more important feeding goals that will help your child to build a healthy relationship with food.
Focusing on the More Important Feeding Goals
Let me let you in on a little secret. As a parent, it’s not your job to get your children to eat vegetables.
Many parents get sidetracked by pursuing goals for their children that may be well-intentioned, but ineffective in truly helping their children thrive.
This isn’t to say you should serve your children a variety of food.
But trying to micromanage their intake deters you from focusing on other crucial aspects of feeding your child that are necessary for your child’s overall mental health, emotional enjoyment and physical well-being.
This includes things like:
Building trust with your child in your feeding interactions
Creating a positive environment from which your child can learn about food and develop her skills with eating
Have reliable access to food through structured meals and snacks
Feeling safe to explore food on his timeline, irrespective of what your own agenda might be
You can see that these things listed here don’t include things like eating a specific food or certain servings of vegetables each day.
It’s not that nutrition is not important.
But when nutrition and your child’s intake becomes pursued as the primary goal of feeding your child, it comes at the expense of these other things which are far more important for your child’s overall health.
When trust and joy goes out of food and eating, your child’s nutrition will suffer.
I share this to help encourage you to focus on the big picture goals that serve as a crucial foundation for your child’s growth and development.
Difference Between Hiding and Honesty WIth Food
Now, I understand that many kid-friendly recipes may incorporate veggies or fruits in them. I also know that serving a familiar food to a child may be a vehicle for introducing a food that is less familiar, like a vegetable.
Given what we’ve covered here, I think it’s important to make the distinction between hiding food and being honest about what you’re including in various meals and snacks for your kids. The more open and direct you can be with them about what you’re including in the different dishes you’re making, the more safe and comfortable they’ll feel to try and explore food on their terms.
This doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to incorporate veggies into your favorite dishes or meals. Just don’t feel like you have to hide it from your kids.
Especially if your child is asking and wondering about what’s in the food, you might say what you’ve included in the meal, along with a reminder that they don’t have to eat whatever it is you’ve prepared.
For example, let’s say you’ve added in some veggies into a pasta sauce and your child wanders into the kitchen and wants to know what you’re making.
You can say something along the lines of, “We’re having pasta with this spaghetti sauce. The sauce has some tomatoes and zucchini in it. You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to. There will be other things on the table you can eat.“
The combination of honesty along with a proactive intent of removing pressure from your child to have to eat something that may be unfamiliar will create a sense of safety around mealtimes. By including foods that are safe for your child, you’re also helping them feel at ease and more likely to explore food from a place of interest, rather than pressure.
On this note, be wary of trying to repurpose your child’s favorite foods to be more “healthified”.
As an example, let’s say your child loves the good old mac n’ cheese from the box. You might try to puree vegetables into this dish or discreetly add in more veggies in order to make the food your child willingly eats more “healthy”. However, in doing this, you may risk breaking trust with your child and also taking away a food that feels safe for them. For picky eaters in particular, having safe foods are important for building eating skills and learning how to eat other foods.
In the event that you’re recreating your child’s favorite dish, don’t try to present it as the same thing.
Instead, be open and direct with your child about what you’re having. Ex: you may say, “This is a dish like the macaroni and cheese that you like.” rather than trying to pass it as the same thing.
7 More Effective Ways to Approach Picky Eaters
With the big picture goals in mind, there are other ways to help you navigate picky eating that don’t involve hiding food or bribing your child.
Remember eating vegetables is not what’s going to save your child’s health. The illusion of raising a perfect eater is an elusive standard and unrealistic expectation that will only make eating and feeding harder for you and your children. It’s okay if they don’t eat veggies.
With that in mind, here are 7 effective ways to help your child build confidence with eating and feel safe in learning to eat new foods:
Focus on your jobs with feeding, trust your child with eating:
One of the most effective ways to support a child who is a pickier eater is to stay in your lane with your feeding jobs and trust your children to do their part with eating.
This means focusing on your job of deciding what you’re feeding your child, when you’re feeding them, and where you’re eating.
Outside of these responsibilities, it’s your job to TRUST your child with eating. Your child should be responsible for deciding 1) whether or not she wants to eat from the food you’ve provided, and 2) how much she wants to eat.
When you try to cross over from your jobs with feeding to do your child’s part with eating, this is where the waters can get murky.
Here’s the thing: you don’t need to micromanage what your child’s plate looks like or what she’s eating from the foods you’ve provided.
Have you heard the expression: “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink!”.
In order for your child to feel safe with food, she must be allowed the space to do her jobs at the dinner table.
Letting go of this control can give our child space to thrive and enjoy mealtimes.
Plus you’ll enjoy mealtimes too if you’re not worrying about micromanaging your child’s plate. Research shows that this approach to feeding is most effective in helping children work through phases of picky eating and get adequate nutrition to support their overall growth and development.
2. Offer without pressuring to eat:
When you’ve tried offering certain foods, like vegetables, to your child in multiple forms and ways, it can be discouraging to continue trying when you’re met with repeated rejection.
Keep in mind that your child needs repeated exposures and interactions to new and unfamiliar foods without any pressure to eat those foods before he might feel comfortable trying the actual food itself.
We often think that eating food is the end goal and the picture of what it looks like for a child to accept a new food. But this is a large jump that a child might not be ready for.
In fact, kids are more likely to work their way up toward potentially wanting to try a new food in small, incremental steps.
Think about it like riding a bike. In general, kids have to master small steps in order to get to a place where they can comfortably ride a bike on their own without any assistance.
This might start with training wheels, learning how to balance, and more before taking off on the bike. Inevitably, kids might have setbacks in the learning process too, or fall multiple times before getting the hang of it.
Learning how to eat foods that are more challenging and unfamiliar works in the same way for kids.
They have to take steps to interact with the food without any pressure to actually eat it before they might get to a place where they want to try it. This might look like tolerating the food next to them on the table or on their plate, touching the food or holding it in their hand, or even putting it in their mouth but then spitting it out again.
All kids will have their own timeline. It’s important to respect whatever timeline your child may be on and to continue to give them multiple opportunities to interact with a variety of different foods without pressuring them to eat it.
For more information on this process, be sure to check out this post here: “How to Get a Picky Eater to Eat: 5 Proven Ways For Offering New Foods”
3. Offer fruits and vegetables interchangeably:
Keep in mind that fruits and vegetables have a similar nutrient profile.
For many kids, experimenting and eating fruits can be a gateway to learning how to eat vegetables. Incorporating and exposing your child to a variety of both fruits and vegetables can help your child feel more comfortable with different textures and flavors.
If your child is drawn to fruits and prefers them over vegetables, that’s okay too.
Keep offering both interchangeably and know that your kiddo is getting a similar boost of micronutrients through consumption of a variety of foods.
For a yummy fruit smoothie recipe that kids love, check out this post here: “Easy Fruit Smoothie Recipe For Kids With Only 4 Ingredients.”
4. Model eating a variety of foods:
Sometimes, we might expect our kids to eat something or try a certain vegetable when we might have a hard time eating it ourselves.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with different cooking methods, flavors and spices when preparing and cooking vegetables. If it’s appealing to you, there’s a better chance it might be appealing to your children.
Adding fat, like grass-fed butter, and mild spices (not spicy) can go a long way in improving the acceptability of vegetables with your kids. And know there are multiple ways to try a food.
Take baby carrots for example. Your child might not like eating them raw or in a salad. But maybe they like roasted carrots, or maybe they’re willing to eat them when cooked in a soup. Trying different presentations of vegetables can give your child options for exploring the foods he’s learning to eat.
Dips can also be an interactive way to help your child boost comfortability with certain foods, like veggies. Serve a plate of fresh vegetables alongside hummus or ranch dressing and let your child engage with the veggies and dip in a way that feels comfortable for him.
Ultimately, modeling eating a variety of foods, including fruits and vegetables, can also be a way through which your child learns and feels comfortable with eating these foods as well.
5. Consider family style serving at family meals:
Earlier, we talked about the importance of allowing kids to learn how to eat and explore food on their terms. This is necessary for helping a child feel more comfortable at mealtimes.
One way to help facilitate this is to allow family style dining at mealtimes, where the food you’re offering is set out on the table, and individual family members can self-serve what they want to eat on their own plates.
The benefit of this is that it really helps take the pressure of your child to eat, or to have to try certain foods.
When we plate the food for our child, this can unintentionally create pressure on the child to have to eat those foods, which makes mealtimes stressful right from the get-go.
When a child is allowed to self-serve based on their individual preferences, this helps build autonomy and independence, which are KEY for helping a child build confidence with food.
This also gives the child space to try food on their own timeline and gives them opportunities to interact with the food when they feel ready.
Even things like spooning food onto their plates are stages of engaging with food that will help them feel more comfortable with the food they are learning to eat. Family style allows exposure to food without pressure to eat it by having it on their plates.
For more on how to implement family style dining, be sure to check out this post here: “How Family Style Dining Makes Feeding Kids Easier at Mealtime”
6. Pair vegetables with a preferred food:
As you continue exposing and offering different foods that may be unfamiliar or more challenging for your child to eat, be sure to always include at least 1-2 food components at the table that you know your child is comfortable eating.
You want your child to feel safe at mealtimes, and it’s going to be challenging for her to sit at the table if she doesn’t identify with at least one item she knows she likes and is comfortable eating.
Now, this doesn’t mean to cater to your child’s preferences at each meal or be a short-order cook by any means.
This won’t help your child in learning how to eat. You can be considerate of your child’s preferences without catering to them - it’s a bit of a balancing act.
As you put together meals for your family, just be sure you’re having at least something on the table that your child will feel comfortable with - like bread and butter, milk, fruit, etc.
When vegetables, or any other unfamiliar foods for that matter, are paired alongside preferred foods, they will feel less intimidating to your child. This, coupled with a non-pressure-to-eat environment, can help your child feel successful and confident at mealtimes.
7. Focus on positive mealtime experiences:
Most importantly, creating positive mealtime experiences can help your child feel safe and confident around food and with eating.
Food, especially new and unfamiliar foods, can be challenging for kids on multiple levels. Making mealtimes a safe and inviting environment can help reduce any stress or anxiety your child might be feeling around eating.
When you’re able to focus on making mealtimes about connecting as a family and enjoying time together, your child will naturally begin to feel more comfortable, curious, and confident with food.
It’s not as much about what you’re eating as it is about how you’re eating it.
Does your child feel welcomed at the table? Is your child able to converse with others comfortably and feel safe talking and sharing?
If mealtimes are generally stressful for your family, think about ways you can diffuse the tension to make it a safe place for your family to come together.
Simple things, like playing a game at the table or letting your kids come dressed to dinner in their favorite costumes, can help infuse an element of joy back into your mealtimes.
In our home, we love playing the guessing game at dinner, where someone has to think of a Disney character, and we all have to ask questions to figure out who it is.
Little things like this can help your family relax over mealtimes and make food less stressful, especially for your children. Creating these positive social experiences around mealtimes can go a long way in decreasing picky eating as well.
Feeding kids can be challenging, and know that you’re doing the best you can. If you need more support along your journey, please connect with me - I’d love to help support your family.
I’d also love to invite you to join me in my upcoming virtual workshop where I’ll be covering more simple and effective strategies you can implement to decrease picky eating and to bring joy back to mealtimes. Sign up for the waitlist below!