My girls eat a huge selection of fresh vegetables and I am quite proud of the fact that they like to pile their plates full of goodness whenever we eat out. When I got the email inviting us to visit one of our local Harvester restaurants for a family meal I jumped at the chance.
Harvester would like my help to promote their new Farm to fork campaign and it is one that I am really happy to support. The campaign aims to educate families on Harvesters commitment to quality and freshness including some new videos which show how the food gets from the farm to the fork in only a few days, ensuring it stays as fresh as possible. You can watch the first video below.
Getting kids to eat fresh vegetables can be tricky and sometimes the novelty of eating them is enough for them to realise that they actually quite enjoyed the taste.I am quite lucky as my kids are the sort of kids that will always opt for the vegetable sticks instead of baked beans on a kids menu but it hasn’t always been that way. Eating out a lot has definitely helped to increase their palette and they love it when we visit the Harvester where they can stuff themselves on the salad bar. Something about being able to pick and choose which bits of salad they want actually means that they eat so much more than if I served it for them.
Now my girls haven’t always liked a lot of vegetables and I found that slowly adding them into their dinners really helped. For example, I cooked honey parsnips with Christmas dinner a few years ago and after trying them Elizabeth now asks for them with our normal roast dinners too. The same goes for Brussels sprouts, it is only after having them with chestnuts and pancetta that they both decided that they love them.
The key for me is ensuring that I cook fresh vegetables instead of frozen and to make sure I don’t overcook them. Just this weekend I got told off by Alison as I over boiled the broccoli on our fake Christmas dinner.
If you are looking to increase how many fresh vegetables your children eat then Christmas could be the ideal time. Make them a bit more special and you never know they could soon be their new favourite.