To Hide or Not To Hide

All of the controversy as to whether or not this was right or wrong to do, didn't come out until Jessica Seinfeld's book Deceptively Delicious, even though there were many others already out there. The book was a popular hit. But there are plenty of people that feel like it's dishonest to "sneak" veggie purees into their kids food.

The book's premise is simple: Various kid friendly foods can be "secretly" enhanced with fruit or veggie purees to up the nutrition, with your kids being none the wiser. The implication is that this is every mother's dream, right here. Delicious, good for you recipes where the children will never have to know what they're eating. Some however find this wrong, but in some cases it just maybe the only way to get your child the fruits and vegetables that he or she needs.

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Regardless of what your opinion may be, for me this has worked out beautifully. I have a 6 year old daughter and she used to eat her fruits and vegetables all the time without any kind of a problem, then one day she just stopped completely. I went back and forth with her for quite awhile trying to figure out how to get her to eat fruits and vegetable again. She never really had a lot of sugar for her tastes to change and not like veggies anymore. I think the most sugar she had at this time was the sugar from the fruits. I was really at a loss with what to do. It seemed like the more I tried the more adamant she became about not eating them. As a parent this was very frustrating, because you want to do whatever possible to ensure that you children are happy and healthy.

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I try very hard to make sure that everything my daughter eats is organic or as natural as I can find. I also make sure that she takes a whole food vitamin, and probiotics as well. Even though I am making sure that she is receiving these vitamins I knew that it was just not enough, she had to have the vegetables and fruits in her diet in order to remain healthy and receive the nutrients that are necessary for her body to remain healthy and grow strong. I just knew there had to be something else that I could do, there just had to be a way that I could get her to start eating her vegetables again.

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After some experimenting, I finally started making what we call in our house shakes. Which is basically just a smoothie, they contain fruits, vegetables and orange juice mixed in a blender (recipe is provided below.) I make enough that she is able to drink them through out the day.

It was a big thing for her because I allow her to help me make them. At first though I had to try and hide the fact that I was putting in vegetables otherwise she wouldn't drink it. But now she knows we put vegetables in the shakes. I actually let her decide which vegetable or vegetables we will be using. All I do is ask her what color she wants to put in, orange, green, yellow, pink etc. Since she now has the control over what goes in them, she absolutely loves them. So not only is she enjoying herself but she is getting a good source of the vitamins she need from the fruits and vegetables.

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I have tried a few of the recipes in Jessica Seinfeld's book Deceptively Delicious, but have not yet tried all of them. In my opinion however I really do not see the problem with hiding veggies in foods. They need their fruits and vegetables to be healthy and as parents that is part of our responsibility to keep them healthy. A few of the recipes that I have tried are: macaroni and cheese, spaghetti and meatballs, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, brownies, chocolate pudding, and oatmeal raisin cookies. All of these are ones that I have ate right along with her and to be honest with you I really couldn't tell a big difference between adding the veggies and not.

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My daughter loves pancakes especially grandmas. Since I started to add veggies my mom now adds veggies to her pancakes when she makes them. And again my daughter picks out which color of pancake she wants, and we pick the veggie or fruit that will give it that color. I think the main thing with my daughter eating and drinking the foods that we have put the veggies in, is that she is actually a part of it. I allow her to help me. It seems that if she helps make it she is more apt to eat it or to drink it. I would strongly recommend this to anyone who has tried this or is thinking about it, to make sure that the kids are a part of the process. It made a big difference for me.

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I have been hiding veggies into my daughter's food for probably about 4 years now. She has slowly began starting to try things again on her own, but I can honestly say that if I hadn't been putting vegetables into her food that she would have gone this whole time and would not have eaten any at all. So I am 100% okay with hiding veggies and fruits in an effort to keep your kids healthy. Even though she is starting to try things again, I will continue to put fruits and veggies into her food just to make sure she is getting all of the nutrients she needs to be healthy.

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This is just one of them you can actually change it however you would like, by adding more fruit and having more than one veggie. I use blackberries and raspberries also. I have also used spinach, avocado, butternut squash, beets, sweet potatoes, zucchini, and broccoli. Just play with different combinations and taste it to see if you need to add anything else you may need more orange juice or another piece of fruit. I drink these myself for breakfast.

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