While we know kids should eat their vegetables, it is not always the easiest task to accomplish. Parents can increase veggie options at meals or snack time, but for some kids just the sight of broccoli is enough to send them running for cover. If you have joined the ranks of clever mums who sneak healthy foods into their tots’ meals, you may be onto to something as a recent study found that kids ate more veggies and fewer calories when vegetables were in disguise.
When Penn State researchers pureed vegetables and snuck them into preschool kids’ favorite foods, they found that not only did the kids eat twice as many veggies, but also consumed 11% fewer calories. This was welcome news as childhood obesity rates continue to climb and kids simply aren’t eating enough produce. For adults, vegetable consumption has been shown to decrease calorie intake but the trick is getting kids to do the same.
Researchers started in the kitchen for this study, and pureed veggies like squash, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, and zucchini. The pureed vegetables were then added to 3 familiar foods – chicken noodle casserole, pasta with tomato sauce, and zucchini bread- to reduce the calories in the entrées by 15% and 25%. The enriched meals were then fed to 39 kids aged 3-6 on 3 separate days.
The kids ate the same amount or volume of food regardless of the recipe, but when they had the veggie boosted entrees, they almost doubled their vegetable intake and reduced their overall calorie intake by default. This same effect was elicited in adults as found in a 2011 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Is hiding veggies in your kids’ foods a little too sneaky or no different than say, swapping applesauce for oil in baked goods? Tough to say, but study contributor Barbara Rolls says a little mealtime deception is not a problem as long as parents continue to employ a variety of methods to increase kids’ exposure to veggies through snacks and side dishes. Check out the Sneaky Chef for recipe ideas and incognito inspirations that are allergen friendly to boot.
Tags: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, kids healthy eating, sneaking vegetables
