PSA: I finally got my kid to eat vegetables by turning them into 'dinosaur food'

For two years, my 4-year-old would scream if a green thing touched his plate. Last month, I bought a $3 dinosaur-shaped cookie cutter from the craft store and started cutting bell peppers and cucumbers into shapes. I call it 'dino food' and put it in a little bowl next to his toy T-Rex. He ate a whole pepper yesterday. Has anyone else found a weird trick that actually worked for picky eaters?

2 comments

2 Comments

miles_perez1d ago

That's a brilliant idea. The power of a story or a game is huge with kids. We had luck with calling broccoli "tiny trees" and telling our daughter she was a giant eating a forest. It sounds silly, but making it an activity instead of a food really changes their focus. You could even take it a step further and build a whole scene on the plate with mashed potato volcanoes and pea boulders.

susan42423h ago

My sister used to call carrots "orange rockets" for her picky son. It really does work, miles_perez. The key is getting them to see the fun first, before they even think about taste. I tried the mashed potato volcano thing last week and my kid ate the whole "lava flow" of gravy without complaining once. It feels like a small victory when you find a trick that clicks. What other food names have you tried besides tiny trees?