For those of you just tuning in, this post is an update to Operation Eat More Vegetables, which is my attempt at getting my 3-year-old, as the title amply explains, to eat more vegetables.
To get a sticker, Meghan has to eat all the vegetables she is served at dinner. It took her 12 days to get 7 stickers on her reward chart.
She was excited to have the seven stickers needed to make a trip to the ice cream parlor. And yes, her fairy princess get-up is everyday attire around here. She loves dressing up and wearing fancy clothes. Even when we have no where to go.
For her reward, she enjoyed a strawberry ice cream cone. Pink, of course. Because pink is her favorite color. Duh.
It’s hard to tell if this reward system is going to have a long-term positive effect on her vegetable-eating habits or not, but for now she is eating more vegetables than she was before, so I’m happy with how it’s going.
I won’t say that it’s been easy every night. There are some nights where she literally had to choke down the vegetables on her plate to get a sticker. This isn’t obviously how I want her to get her vegetables eaten, but I hope as her taste buds develop she’ll start liking them more. And by then, maybe this will help her be used to eating them.
Today I’m bringing you a recipe for blueberry vinaigrette. Yes, I do know that blueberry vinaigrette salad dressing is not a vegetable. But it just may encourage more vegetable eating.
I want to move Meghan in a direction of eating more like we eat. She is still stuck on having everything deconstructed. This dressing was my attempt to get her to eat salad. I figured since she loves blueberries, maybe she’d be willing to try a salad with blueberries and blueberry dressing.
I was wrong, by the way. She wanted nothing to do with eating the salad. But the dressing was delicious, so I thought I’d share the dressing recipe anyway. I can see this being a hit with older kids. Or just less-picky kids. Who knows? Kids are funny.
Blueberry Vinaigrette
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoon xylitol, sugar, or sweetener of choice (I used xylitol)
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
salt and pepper
Put the first five ingredients in a small blender and blend until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste. This dressing will thicken after sitting in the fridge, but water can be added to make it pourable again. Enjoy!
Healthy Living Playbook!
I think You are doing a great job! My daughter eats everything deconstructed too, and if I even give her something combined, she won’t touch it! And it’s funny because all the veggies she used to eat and love when she was younger, she no longer wants…She would rather have something else. Love the idea of a sticker chart, maybe I’ll try that when my daughter is a little older! 🙂
Yay Meghan! Maybe instead of serving her a salad already dressed, she might like having a little bowl of spinach and a little bowl of dressing and being able to dip leaves into the dressing? I know my kids will eat more of they get to dip it in something. So weird! But maybe she’d at least try it that way. The vinaigrette sounds delicious and the color is so pretty. Love blueberries 😀
I’d be okay with my kiddo having to choke down their veggies- at least they are getting them in there and getting their taste buds used to them….. I’m all game for trying your blueberry vinaigrette- sounds delicious— a great effort on your part. 🙂
You’re doing a great job growing your cute little blessings!
This is different but very doable in this household. Sometimes I am the only one to eat the fresh berries and they end up going bad but this is a nice way to take them from breakfast into another meal, aside from just tossing them on the salad. Looking forward to it, if we can every stop making your veggie meatloaf! 🙂
OH, this is very random but I just learned about animal bone char (!?) in regular ol’ white sugar and was wondering if you knew about that! I bought some jam from a vegetarian gal in Florida and she’d said she was using vegan sugar . I had no idea what that meant, so I looked into it. SCARY! :\
Glad to hear you are still doing the experiment. I am really interested in how it goes. I think I might try that when my two year old gets closer to three. Sometimes he will eat vegetables but lately it seems to be getting worse. I don’t know if you have read “French Kids Eat Everything” it talks a lot about how kids start learning to eat in daycare then preschool and by copying other kids (peer pressure). She talks about how in France you learn to like something by repeated exposure. Fascinating, I highly recommend it. I am starting to think repeated exposure might be the answer to our current problems with children. Most adults don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables so we shouldn’t be surprised that kids aren’t learning it either. Thanks for your blog.
Love the vinaigrette! Blueberries are one of my favorite fiberlicious foods and I love incorporating them into my day. I think its great that you are offering your daughter creative veggie and fruit options. I bet she’ll be so much more accepting of such things in the future, even if some of them aren’t so well accepted now.
The dressing looks delicious. 🙂
Yum! You know, I just tried a sticker chart with my 4 1/2 yo … and you know what she said? “No, thanks, mamma … I only want one sticker.”
Crap.
🙂
That’s too funny. At least she was polite about it. 🙂