Get Your Kids to Eat Their Veggies From the Beginning

Apparently, getting your kids to eat their veggies goes way beyond being a good role model.

According to new research from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, if you're breast feeding, eating vegetables will encourage your children to eat them later.

The idea is that mothers who eat vegetables will be passing those flavours on to their babies as they breastfeed. "It's a beautiful system," says Julie A. Mennella, Ph.D, the senior author of the study. "Flavors from the mother's diet are transmitted through amniotic fluid and mother's milk. So, a baby learns to like a food's taste when the mother eats that food on a regular basis."As your baby begins the transition between breast milk and cereal to solid food offer them vegetables and fruit at every meal. Just as with older babies, you will probably have to offer the food a number of times before the your child eats it.

These early meals set the pattern for years to come. Don't praise or scold, just calmly offer the foods. If the baby eats it, great. Don't be frustrated if they don't want it-just try again at a later meal. Remember, they can't eat their fruits and vegetables unless you offer them.

If they get used to vegetables at the age of one, then they'll be champs by the age of three, and you won't need to call broccoli "dinosaur trees". ::Newswise

Difficulty level: Easy