How to get your kids to dig veggies!

Monica Irwin from @veggiebudsclub loves to make veggies fun so your kids will eat them! She founded a monthly subscription box for kids that teaches them to love a new veggie each month through fun activities and play: Learn + Cook + Play + Create + Grow = Eat! Find more information about Veggie Buds Club at veggiebudsclub.com and check out some of her proven ways to get your kids to eat veggies below. You can also follow along on Instagram and Facebook.

Raise your hand if it’s difficult to get your kids to eat veggies?! We hear you, with all of the not-so-healthy and quick-and-convenient snacks and meal options out there (that are often shelf stable and require little prep) it can be difficult to get your kids excited about veggies. But don’t fear, there are fun methods out there to get your kids into veggies and we’re here to share some of our favorites!

At Veggie Buds Club we make veggies FUN and this is our key to get your kids to ask for veggies. It’s often a no-brainer to play pretend with dinos and dolls, craft unicorns and sea turtles, and read books about cats and dump trucks, but we challenge you to do day-to-day activities with your children but focus on veggies instead! Here are some ideas:

1. Read books about veggies:

There are a lot of great books out there that feature veggies, here is a list of some of our favorites:

• “I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato” by Lauren Child
• “Growing Vegetable Soup” by Lois Ehlert
• “Monsters Don’t Eat Broccoli” by Barbara Jean Hicks
• “Sylvia’s Spinach” by Katherine Pryor
• “Creepy Carrots” by Aaron Reynolds 
• “What if Vegetables Were People?” By Kate Wengier

2. Do arts and crafts that feature veggies:

You can find a lot of fun veggie projects over on our blog and Pinterest page!

One of our favorite crafts is to play around with veggie stamps. This is fun because there’s a whole world of veggie stamps out there! Apples make a pretty stamp cut both horizontally and vertically.

Okra cut across the middle makes a beautiful “flower” stamp, broccoli florets cut vertically make a “tree” stamp, and potatoes can be cut in half and then shapes can be carved out of them such as stars, triangles, and squares. Getting a selection of peppers to stamp with is one of our favorites.

Another fun veggie craft is our Pea Necklace craft, this one is oh so simple and encourages your children to eat their peas! Simply tie a plastic needle on one end of a string and then have your child poke sugar snap peas or snow peas on the needle to create an edible pea necklace (much healthier than the classic candy necklace!).

3. Play games that feature veggies:

Play “Pepper Stop Go!”. Simply hold up a green bell pepper and call out the word “GO!”- your kid then runs around and around until you hold up a red bell pepper and call out the word “STOP!”. Make it even more fun with a yellow bell pepper, this means “SLOW”. 

Play bean tic tac toe! It’s really quite simple, see our photo below.

You can also play classics such as memory with veggie characters! Find a free printable of our Veggie Memory game here.

4. Grow simple veggies indoors:

There are many veggies that grow quickly and can be grown indoors quite easily. Kids are definitely more apt to try a veggie if they have a hand in growing it. Examples of good container veggies include green bush beans, radishes, and herbs such as basil and mint.

We are a huge fan of sprouts! Sprouts can be grown in as little as a week’s time so these are great veggies to grow indoors with children’s notoriously short attention spans. It’s magical to plant a seed and watch it sprout! Find instructions on how to grow tasty micro basil here.

5. Involve your kids in the kitchen:

And finally, cook with your kids! It makes a huge difference, trust us. If your children drop spinach in a blender for a green smoothie they are much more likely to drink the smoothie than if you plop a green smoothie in front of them. Don’t be afraid to let them handle a kid-safe knife or butter knife to chop softer veggies such as cucumbers and zucchini.

Allow them to snap the ends off of beans, and the florets off of broccoli and cauliflower. You may be surprised to see them sampling the product while prepping veggies. You can find a whole plethora of kid-friendly recipes on our blog, including Cauliflower Popcorn, Broccoli Nuggets, Carrot Chips, and Green French Toast Sticks!

Thank you so much Monica for so many inspiring ways to get those greens eaten! We love how you use creative play based learning activities to get kids hands on and more enthusiastic about vegetables! If you'd like to subscribe to Veggie Buds Club follow this link to find out more.

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Creative QT designs quality + innovative toys that declutter homes and inspire creative play. Founded by parents of five, Adam and Dana Sue Hinkle, Creative QT’s vision is to empower parents and encourage a culture of families that Make Time Together. All products are designed to enrich families’ lives through active, creative play and play based learning. Creative QT products are laboratory tested for compliance with CPSC requirements and are free of lead, cadmium and phthalates so you can play with confidence. So, go ahead … today is the day: be your kid’s hero.

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