Toppings, Sauces and Dips

• Toddlers love to dip their foods. Offer healthy, tasty dips for raw veggies like hummus, peanut butter, guacamole and cream cheese. Raw and cooked vegetables topped with sauces are also appealing to toddlers. Some examples of appropriate toppings and sauces are melted low-fat cheese, tomato sauce, yogurt, cream cheese, guacamole, salsa and applesauce. Always check for peanut allergies before offering peanut butter to toddlers.
  
  

Camouflage Vegetables

• If a toddler refuses to eat vegetables, conceal them in her favorite foods. For instance, if a toddler refuses carrots but loves spaghetti, grate carrots into the spaghetti sauce. If he loves mashed potatoes, add in boiled mashed cauliflower. Chop or grate broccoli or green beans and then mix the vegetables into chunky salsa. Puree beets or carrots into pizza sauce. Since most toddlers love muffins, make zucchini, carrot, or pumpkin mini-muffins.
  
  

Repeated Exposure

• Expose a toddler to a variety of vegetables regularly to increase the chance that he will try and eat vegetables. A toddler may choose to eat a few of the same foods repeatedly, and this is fine as long as the foods are relatively healthy. Rotate those foods while continuing to offer a variety of vegetables. It may take 10 to 15 tries before a toddler will try a vegetable. If children are offered repeated opportunities to sample new vegetables, then at least some of them will be accepted.
  
  

Plant a Garden

• Plant a container garden with toddlers to create interest in vegetables. Use a power drill to create drainage holes in the container. Line the bottom of the container with pebbles and then fill the container with potting soil, approximately three-quarters of the way full. Use a fork to make grooved lines in the top layer of the soil. Encourage preschoolers to insert seeds into the grooves of the potting soil. Plant beets, turnips, beans and lettuce seeds. Mist the seeds with water in a water bottle. Cover the seeds with more potting soil and then mist again. Children may become more interested in eating the vegetables that they helped grow.