Children prefer pureed vegetables

Children prefer pureed vegetables in their favorite food

15/09/2011

Many children do not like vegetables. This fact is mostly due to the taste socialization by the parents. For pureed vegetables, this looks quite different, as a recent study from the US showed.

Children are given far too little fresh fruit or vegetables to eat. Instead, most kids prefer to eat ready-to-eat like chips, pizza, or nuggets. But children can be outsmarted with a few tricks, as a nutrition study from the USA found. If the vegetables are pureed beforehand and added to popular foods such as noodle casserole, the youngest will like to eat a lot and healthy from Mother Nature.

Pureed vegetables in the favorite food of the children makes more desire for a healthy diet. Parents, for example, who serve pasta with vegetable porridge, can encourage preschoolers to eat healthier and calorie-conscious foods. According to a study, the kids even ate twice as many vegetables as before and consumed significantly less kilocalories during the day.

A total of 39 preschool children aged between three and six participated in the US study. For a week, the children were given a variety of vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli, tomatoes, squash and zucchini in pureed form. The small subjects could eat as much as they wanted to their heart's content. Most of the children ate as much as before and said that they liked it very much, even though it contained much more vegetables. The vegetable recipes contained 15 to 25 percent fewer calories than the food, which was served to the children in similar form in advance.

"It is known that cut vegetables and fruits are better eaten than whole pieces," as Dr. Monika Niehaus from the Association of Pediatricians (BVKJ) said. But now parents have a whole new way to feed children healthier. The US study showed that the meals with the pureed vegetables contained between 15 and 25 percent fewer calories.

Children can be tasted more often
If you want to introduce your children to new and healthy flavors, you should try them again and again. If it fails the first time, parents can try again later. „Under no circumstances should children be forced to eat the superior foods if they do not want to“, warned Gritli Bertram, a social worker from Hanover. This leads to an opposite effect, the children reject the food even more than before. It would be better to then offer alternatives. Kids do not always ask for pizza. „Sometimes children prefer to eat a banana rather than an apple.“

Little tricks and above all a lot of patience is necessary to get children used to a healthy meal, says Niehaus. Children are very curious and this can also be included in nutrition education. „Cooking and cooking together also arouses interest in food“ Bertram adds. Food that was prepared together with the parents tastes much better afterwards. (Sb)

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Picture: Rolf van Melis