Oh, fruit!

My kids LOVE fruit. They are passionate about fruit. They would eat fruit, and only fruit, at every meal if I let them. If they were to make a list of favorites I am not sure if it would be grapes, strawberries, peaches, pears, blueberries, raspberries, bananas, apples, or mandarin oranges that would be at the top, probably blueberries or strawberries.



In fact, when I open the fridge I often try to do so discretely. Otherwise I have two little people standing there pointing and grabbing at all of things things they want, always fruit. Then we have "discussions" about maybe being allowed fruit after they have eaten something else.



We used to (and still can) bribe Tryn to take bites of something with fruit. We would tell her that if she wanted a bite of strawberry that she would have to take a bite of spaghetti first. This actually worked really well. However, this is really tiresome to do at every meal and now we are to the point where she is old enough to just understand, "Eat this. This is dinner. If you don't want it, you can't ask for anything else." This doesn't always work as Tryn did not want Lemon Greek Chicken (really yummy!) the other night and when to bed with precisely four bites of chicken in her stomach (as she would not touch the potato, red and green pepper, and onion part of it). Berlin cannot be bribed. She will absolutely not take a bite if she does not want to...no matter what. So I am struggling. My kids HATE veggies as much as they love fruit, which is a lot. They will sometimes eat potatoes or corn. Nothing else. The experts say to keep reintroducing a food that you want your kids to eat and they will eventually start to eat it. Well, we have been introducing Tryn to vegetables for almost three years now and guess what, the experts are WRONG! I actually think Tryn likes veggies less now than she did before.

Well, as I get teased most days at work for eating spinach, carrots, bell peppers, and cucumbers for lunch, I am determined that my kids eat some veggies. I am a firm believer in nutritious eating and well balances meals. So, in a desperate attempt, I made them a grilled cheese sandwich on Saturday and put veggies in the cheese. As you can see below, Berlin was absolutely not impressed. She didn't even swallow a single bite. Tryn had to have ranch to dip hers in, which almost defeats the point of having veggies in the meal, and picked out the majority of carrots that she could find. AH!





Does anybody have any really great recipes, suggestions, ideas? I mean, I really can't complain all that much, because at least my kids will eat...most of the time. I just think it is really important to eat non highly processed and fresh foods, including lots of vegetables. And it's not working so far. Should I just wait and back off for a few months and hope that they will just eventually start eating veggies? Or should I keep trying? I just really don't know what to do...my mom always made me eat stuff. Though I hated it at the time, I am very grateful now :) Ugh.