Kids & Vegetables

An easy way to encourage children to eat more vegetables, reported by Penn State researchers: give them the veggies first.

Excerpt:

When the children received 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of carrots at the start of the meal, their vegetable intake rose by nearly 50 percent compared to having no carrots as a first course. But when the first course was increased to 60 grams (about 2 ounces) of carrots, average vegetable consumption nearly tripled to about 63 grams -- or a third of the recommended vegetable intake for preschool children.

 Here's the abstract for the article in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

In our house, we find that a plate of prepared, raw vegetables, such as bell peppers, carrots, celery, zucchini, cucumber, and sugar snap peas, vanishes very quickly either as a snack or as part of a meal.