Making The Most Out Of Your Ingredients With Picky Eaters

​​Navigating the world of picky eaters, especially toddlers, can be challenging when it comes to incorporating essential nutrients into their diet. Ensuring they receive a balanced intake of vitamins and minerals is crucial for their growth and development. Sneaking in veggies and protein can get you pretty far, as long as you do it right. Here is how you can get the most out of your ingredients while minimizing food waste.

Of course, they need these valuable sources of nutrients to grow and develop, aside from the fact that you don’t want to be wasting valuable groceries and ingredients.

7 tips for sneaking veggies into kids’ meals according to Good Housekeeping:

1. Add cauliflower to mashed potatoes

2. Feed them veggie-based treats similar to their favourites, like popsicles or veg-based bars

3. Add finely granted zucchini or carrots into meats

4. Blend veggies inside sauces

5. Mix in zoodles to your noodles

6. Make smoothies with veggies blended in

7. Air fry seasoned veggie “fries” 

TikToker Rosa Picosa, who bills herself as a home engineer, confesses in a video that she couldn’t remember the last time her kid ate a vegetable. Her solution? Steam and blend carrots to combine into a pasta sauce. She makes it extra easy on herself by using jarred pasta sauce. Throughout the video she tries to keep things fun, asking her child, “Can I take your order ma’am?” before the kid starts screaming. She brilliantly responds by handing her a napkin, calling it the customer service number, which actually quiets her down.

“The sillier I get the more likely he is to eat,” she says, goofing around in front of the camera.

It takes a little bit for the kid to warm up to the sauce, but Rosa’s patience is rewarded with eventual shouts of, “Good pasta,” “I like pasta,” “I love pasta” and “It’s very good.”

The final result: sneaky sauce definitely works. Another TikToker shows evidence of successfully getting her kid to eat spinach in a popsicle (without knowing of course).

Another who says their daughter will not eat eggs or meat shows off how they snuck protein into a breakfast of waffles, peanut butter, banana, a hash brown and a smoothie with peanut butter protein powder in it. The mother of an “intensely picky eater” uses a strategy of putting tiny pieces of chicken into foods her child will actually eat, suggesting something like Rice-a-Roni because the chicken blends right in.

Looking to outsource the fight with picky eaters? Consider getting your family matched with a personal chef. Having a third party preparing the meals may help when feeding your little ones.