as a child ,how did you mother encourage you to eat vegetables?

We lived on a farm and grew our own vegetables, most of them anyway. Never needed encouragement to eat any vegetable, one of my first favorite foods was green beans. I started helping in the garden when i was 2 1/2 and that was encouragement itself, being able to plant seeds and then see them grow and form vegetables and later to pick them. Of course I wanted to eat them.

I had a nice garden when my daughter was a toddler, the next year I planted her a little garden in the yard, tomato plants surrounded by popcorn, pinto beans, marigolds and a few others. She would go check it each day. It is good to teach children where their food comes from. Never had a problem getting her to try or eat any kind of vegetable, even cooked spinach. Her father saw her jumping up and down in her high chair asking for more spinach and it got him to try it. Fresh picked veggies are much sweeter than store-bought. She even loved vegetables later on that I had never tried and got me hooked on them---pickled okra, fried green tomatoes, asparagus and Brussels sprouts.

I don't ever remember not eating vegetables. Mom was such a good cook and mostly everything she made was raised on the farm and was delicious.

We played hard outdoors and were famished. You could always smell the aroma of the next meal before entering the front porch. There were no problems getting us to eat veggies or anything else.

I had one who never touched a vegetable until he was out on his own and starving. He was so scrawny as a kid, the doc told me "it's not WHAT he eats, it's THAT he eats," so we had a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and he survived. Now he practically eats nothing else except vegetables. He's a good cook.

Not really.But how can anyone with a pulse turn down a just picked from the garden vegetable?

If I were a parent (and at the age of 58 I can say I did not want the resposibility of children),I would explain to them the benefits of a healthy diet.A good role model is Gary Player.He is in his 70's and his fitness level is better than some 30 & 40 year olds.

When I was a kid, we had a vegetable garden. My sister and I would eat veggies right out of the garden. We would wash them off with a garden hose. I loved most all vegetables except for Brussels sprouts and cooked carrots. I loved raw carrots but not cooked. They did not make me eat the Brussels sprouts. I did the same thing with my kids. I planted a garden every spring and I would let them choose what they liked. As long as they ate something in the way of vegetables I was happy.

The more you try to encourage her to eat them the more she will resist. If you feel she is not getting enough vitamins from the food she is eating give her a vitamin supplement for children. When she gets older I'm sure her eating habits will change and she will eat the foods she disliked as a child, sure there will be the odd veg and fruit that will remain untouched but on the whole I'm sure her eating habits will change with age. Don't get yourself so anxious and relax a bit as you said she is healthy...... you have nothing to worry about.

I was born into a new house without a yard and over time my parents planted the grass and trees and made a garden. Kids back then played with pots and pans, boxes, clothes pins, sand and made sand cakes, played with the butterflys and ants and drew pictures on the white meat paper, in other words we were bored and had little to play with. So when my parents grew the garden they had me work along side them. When the plants grew and had vegetables I spent all my time in the pea, raddish and onion patch just eating away. It was like my babysitter in that any time my mother looked for me she would find me in the garden. Wish I had had children then yes I would have taught them how to grow vegetables too.

We had a huge garden when I was little and vegetables were always there. I also had a huge garden when my kids were little and I fed them vegetables and salads every evening. My dad used to say things like think of all the little starving children and clean up your plate. We also ate a wide variety of meat and poultry. None of my kids are picky eaters. My daughter has a partner that won't eat hardly anything. She fixes for him and for her and her little boy. I used to feed my kids pork n beans when they were little by sitting with them and making a game of poking the beans with a tooth pick and then zooming into the mouth. My uncle had fruit orchards so I always canned lots of apple sauce, pears, peaches, spiced peaches. I made hearty stews full of veggies and made some rolls to accompany and they liked that. I used to have 'junk food' meals once a week with lots of raw veggies, sliced salami, crackers and ham and cheese, finger foods and they never missed a meal, even in high school.

She didn't like veggies, so we didn't have them except on Sunday, as a treat. However, whenever we didn't want whatever food she'd prepared, she used to say that there were people starving in Armenia. She was a bit older than most of my friends mothers, so was behind the times on world events. I didn't know where Armenia was, and who might be starving there, or why.

It didn't make sense to me. How could my eating something make any difference to the Armenians? I used to tell her she could send my food to them. Then she'd get soooooooo mad at me!

When my kids refused to eat, I simply told them no dessert. Sit and watch the rest of us eat. They would not be allowed any snacks or anything until after the next meal. I enforced that, too.

My mother was a wonderful cook, I liked most everything. I did not like liver at all, I never liked cheese, but if it was on my plate, I had to eat it, ALL. No milk with meals, she would say we should not wash our food down. If I protested because I seriously didn't like something, she would say, "well you can't learn any younger". Although she insisted I must learn to like every thing, realistically that didn't happen, I would force it down, pray it would be a long time before I had to eat it again, As you grow up some taste preferences change, I like avocado now, and onions. I still do not like liver or brains, and not much cheese.

We used "by example". Introducing a new veggie by requiring at least 1 bite. We served a variety of veggies and ate plenty of salads as well. When we went out to eat, every family member would order a tossed salad with blu-cheese dressing on the side. We didn't allow picky eaters at the table and that included our childrens' friends. You ate what was presented at meal time or choose to go hungry.