May 4, 2010 Salad Days
Salad. It’s one of the most emotionally charged foods (or dishes) out there. Parents tell me all the time how they wish their kids would eat it. The problem is, they don’t really believe their kids ever will.
Of course there are children who do eat salad. Everyone knows at least one. But deep down, don’t you believe those kids are anomalies, little freaks of nature? But they're not.
Getting kids to eat salad isn’t terribly different than getting them to eat anything else; it’s mostly a function of exposure. The more children see, touch, smell, get to know salad, the more likely they are to eat it.
Still, it’s clear that there is something special about salad because even many kids who eat a pretty wide range of vegetables refuse to eat it.
And lots of parents seem to assess their culinary competence, and their children’s nutritional health, on the basis of their kids’ salad eating skills. What's a parent to do?
There are five facets to getting kids to eat salad. Implement them all and your little tyke will tuck into this dish before you know it.
1) Increase Exposure. Give your kids salad every day. I know this seems like a lot, but you're trying to make salad, and salad-eating, seem normal. It’s best to give your children salad when others are also eating it (for the modeling effect) but if you don’t eat with your toddler on a regular basis, serve salad as often as you can. In fact, start thinking of salad like breakfast. You provide it every day, but you change the ingredients on a regular basis.
2) Eliminate the Competition. When it comes to salad-eating, you need to pick the best timing and offer your kids salad when there are no competing foods. Salad simply can’t win when it’s up against better selections. Consider salad as a first course, as snack (done properly it is great finger-food) or even as the appetizer, dished up while you’re cooking dinner.
3) Keep Serving Sizes Small: Give your kids a teeny amount of salad so that success seems easy to them. After all, many children who think you want them to eat a whole plate won’t even try a single bite. One tablespoon is a good amount to start with. Work up to about 1/4 or 1/3 a cup after your kids are experienced salad-eaters.
4) Switch It Up: Be sure to rotate what you put in the salad; don't make it just greens. And think about changing the dressing. Not only will this teach your children the true nature of salad – that it’s a kind of dish, not a predetermined selection of ingredients – but mixing it up also will avert their claim to not like it. (How can they know if they don’t like it if they’ve never seen a salad quite like this before?) In addition, don’t put some of everything from the salad onto your children’s plate. Pick and choose the items you think they’ll like most - tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. Knowing they haven’t gotten the whole salad makes kids feel their taste preferences are being respected and that will make them more likely to eat what they’ve been given.
5) Stay Silent: Don’t talk about the salad. Don’t put any pressure on your child to eat it. And don’t say anything other than “OK” if your child doesn’t eat it. Simply remove the salad at the end of that course and move on to the meal. Over time your child will eat the salad. I promise.
When it comes to getting kids to eat salad, you've got to think long term.
Unless you have been blessed with the rare breed of child -- humanus saladicus - who takes to salad at first sighting, you've got to build salad into your child's structure of eating, make it expected, make it a habit. Oh yeah, and consider giving salad The Look!. It will really help a lot.
~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~
Reader Comments (9)
Big salads are a weekly summer dinner in our house, made up of whatever salad-worthy items are hanging out in the fridge plus things that look good at the weekly greenmarket. While our daughter balks at eating it tossed (she hasn't yet developed an appreciation for raw greens), she loves a plateful of assorted cut up items: carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, cheese, beans, beets, salami...you name it! Such a great lesson in variety.
Jessica,
Sounds like you've got the salad days down! Good for you!!!
Dina
My mother is French, so if you know anything about the Med lifestyle, you'll know especially through the summer if you don't eat salad you get pretty hungry! I was (and still am) an incredibly fussy child but I think my mother did well. She would give me all the salad ingredients everyone else was having, but not mixed up. And as long as I ate a far few different things (like carrots, cucumber, pepper, lettuce, spinach, corn, swede) she wouldn't insist on forcing things I HATED on me - like tomatoes. I still eat this way with everything in neat little piles. People think it's weird, but I bet I'm getting a far wider variety of vegetables and nutrients than most people do. I still won't eat tomatoes though!
A-M,
It sounds like your mother knew a thing or two about feeding kids. I agree with her approach and if it means you still like little piles of food? Who cares?
Poor tomatoes though!
Dina
I accidentally created a "humanus saladicus" - my now-10-year-old - when she was pre-kindergarten. I had a great salad at a local restaurant (romaine, real pear slices, craisins, glazed pecans, feta, raspberry dressing) and started making this fabulous creation for myself for lunch. I would sit down to dine on my colorful feast and low and behold, there would appear my little daughter, sitting close by my elbow. "Mom, can I have a bite?" Next thing I knew my whole salad was gone and I had to start another one for myself! I also made the mistake of letting my older daughter see me secretly enjoying a white peach...haven't had one to myself since. This is the same behavior as your kids catching you sneaking a cookie but better...they want YOUR yummy healthy food! The downside...you'll never have your pear-craisin salad to yourself again. :)
I'm not surprised you have a "humanus saladicus." Just your description of the salad you made makes me want one! You obviously love your creations, and that love gets transmitted to the kids.
Thanks for your comment.
Dina
My son was probably 4 when they had salad as the sample at Trader Joe's. And since all samples at TJ's are delicious he happily tried it. He loved it. (We had tried salad before of course, but never with such success.) It had all the qualities you talk about, little serving, not too much on it. It was a cranberry walnut gorganzola dressing that we still get 3 years later. We call it "pink" dressing. I'll have to remember to give him small salads more often! We also are more likely to eat arugula or spinach, and this was a more simple crunchy salad. Thanks for reminding me to mix it up a bit more.
Lisa,
Thanks for sharing your story. Samples at stores are a great way to introduce new foods because they're always seen as attractive and tempting. I love that your son likes "pink" dressing - proving that kids can enjoy sophisticated, strong, flavors.
Dina
If you want your children to eat salad, get them to help make it. My daughter loves ripping up the lettuce or mixing up the chopped cucumbers with the carrots. The difference between a salad that a child has helped to make, and one which is just put in front of her is, to them, a very big thing. You should find that they are so proud that they will eat it without any fuss at all. The only disadvantage is that it doesn't make for the best looking dish, but that is a small consideration in my opinion.