{"id":8887,"date":"2009-06-02T01:00:16","date_gmt":"2009-06-02T06:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/?p=8887"},"modified":"2009-06-01T13:43:30","modified_gmt":"2009-06-01T18:43:30","slug":"kids-food-tasting-party-encourages-healthy-eating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/06\/kids-food-tasting-party-encourages-healthy-eating\/","title":{"rendered":"Kid’s Food Tasting Party Encourages Healthy Eating"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melanie is a guest blogger for the DietsInReview.com special series on Healthy Summer Kids<\/a>. <\/em>Melanie Berezan, aka Crazy Legs, is co-founder of GirlGetStrong.com<\/a>. A restless writer, entrepreneur, traveler, and a bit of a weird wife (sorry honey!). Slightly insane mum of four cool little people who are either angels or monsters depending on the day\u2019s medication. Proud owner of 10 terribly twisted and calloused running toes, and most of all an avid fan of fun!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"melanie-berezan\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Summer brings with it all sorts of great fresh produce. But what do you do when you have a hard time getting your children to eat their summer veggies<\/a>?\u00a0 Here\u2019s a fun idea that worked like a charm on my children, who range in age from four to ten years old. We threw a \u201cfood tasting party\u201d.<\/p>\n

A food tasting party works like this:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Announce with great fanfare that you are throwing a super-cool party and you need the kids\u2019 help planning it;<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Tell them that it\u2019s going to be a special \u201ctaste test party\u201d, with some great new foods (insert veggie names here); make sure you are honest about the foods you will be serving, but make it sound like the fun adventure it is going to be;<\/p>\n

\"mom<\/a>3.\u00a0If (or when!) the kids express suspicion or dismay, encourage them by telling them that you will be cleansing their palate in between tastings with\u2026 (pick your not-too-sweet treat<\/a> and insert it here) and explain that a \u201ctasting\u201d means only one bite.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0The keys are: the festive atmosphere, getting the kids involved with the planning, and the presentation of foods in a party style.<\/p>\n

Gather four new foods you\u2019d like your children to try. Think about how to present them in a fun way; can you use cookie cutters to make fun shapes? Or can you arrange them in a funny face on the plate?\u00a0 Do your children love sauces? Ketchup?\u00a0 Even if a vegetable (or fruit!) would not normally be served with a condiment, does it really matter? The point is to get the kids to try it\u2026 if that means lettuce dipped in a bit of ketchup do we really care?\u00a0 All we really want from the tasting party is for the kids to have fun and to learn to be open to trying new food.<\/p>\n

Getting the children to buy into the process early is important. Ask the kids to help prepare the foods and set out the palate-cleansing treats (tip: don\u2019t pick a treat that is too sweet \u2013 it just makes vegetables seem more sour. Instead, try something neutral, like a favorite cracker, animal cookies or another plain food).<\/p>\n

Make sure you participate in the tasting, too.\u00a0 Tell them that after they each have a taste, they can put a blindfold on you and feed you a surprise bite.\u00a0 If your children decide to dip your lettuce in ketchup, make a big deal of what a unique flavor it is \u2013 and how wonderful it is to try new things, even if we decide after that we don\u2019t like them.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve thrown tasting parties several times. Do our kids now love all vegetables? Not at all, but they are remarkably willing to try new foods \u2013 both at home and out.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a great step!<\/p>\n

Guest Blog Series:<\/strong> Look for the following badge on your favorite health sites to see if they have been a featured guest blogger on <\/em>DietsInReview.com<\/em><\/a>. See other posts in the <\/em>Guest Blog series<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Diets<\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

If you would like to apply to be featured as a guest blogger, please <\/em>contact us<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melanie is a guest blogger for the DietsInReview.com special series on Healthy Summer Kids. Melanie Berezan, aka Crazy Legs, is co-founder of GirlGetStrong.com. A restless writer, entrepreneur, traveler, and a bit of a weird wife (sorry honey!). Slightly insane mum … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1367,3695],"tags":[23,1753,1689,29,242],"class_list":["post-8887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-health","category-diet-and-nutrition","tag-guest-blog","tag-healthy-summer-kids","tag-melanie-berezan","tag-nutrition","tag-vegetables"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8887"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8890,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887\/revisions\/8890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}