Tuesday 6 December 2011

Give Your Children A Veggie Good Christmas This Year

As a mum of young kids, I found this made interesting reading. It's scary to read that the average child consumes 2300 calories on Christmas Day but I wonder how many the adults consume ! Don't miss out on the top tips for getting your children to eat vegetables and the free height chart offer (scroll down to the bottom of the blogpost) - that's two freebies I've told you about today : that and the Thinking Slimmer Christmas Slimpod (see here) ! I'll start saying Ho Ho Ho soon but you'll have to decide if I'm imitating Santa or the Green Giant !

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This Christmas make sure your families enjoy their vegetable goodness throughout the Festive season to set them up for a healthy New Year. Last Christmas the average child consumed 2,300 calories on Christmas Day alone. Green Giant knows it's hard enough to get children to eat their 5-a-day throughout the year and the task just gets harder when they are tempted with festive treats and sweets.


The good news is a recent survey by Green Giant revealed parents aren't giving up and are working hard with tactics to inspire their children to eat up their vegetables.

This is not an easy task according to the survey:-

Four out of five parents confirmed their children don't willingly eat their 5-a-day

One in ten children actively avoid vegetables

Children in Brighton and Liverpool were revealed as the 'most willing' to eat their vegetables with almost 61% claiming no issues with veggie goodness

Whilst only 37% of parents in Belfast reported the same level of 'willingness'

The survey of more than 1,000 parents led to families revealing successful tips for veggie goodness on Facebook which included calling sweet corn 'yellow peas' or peas 'green corn' and turning cauliflower pink with natural food colouring.

Green Giant has 12 tips for the 12 days of Christmas to ensure your family is healthy, happy and wise for the New Year ahead.

12 days of Christmas tips from Green Giant:-

1 - Camouflage veg within other foods and sauces - or try out recipes with vegetables in - great for leftovers! Turkey and sweet corn go very well together

2 - No vegetables no dessert - or no Advent calendar

3 - Reward veggie goodness - play a family game or go out together as a reward after your meal

5. Lead by example - remember your children are watching what you eat!

6. Encourage inquisitiveness - inspire your children to try new types of vegetables. Do yellow vegetables taste better than green?

7. Be portion savvy - present vegetables in bite sized portions - don't serve up a mountain of veg

8. Find out which role models your children are inspired by and use them - refer to those hero's as being big fruit and vegetable eaters. I bet Santa eats plenty of fruit and veg!

9. Getting children involved - with shopping, cooking and preparing meals. If you have time on your hands this Christmas encourage them to get involved in the kitchen.

10. Spend time experimenting with tastes and texture. Fresh, raw vegetables taste different from cooked vegetables - you don't have to resort to a raw carrot in their stocking though!

11. Soups are great during the cold weather. They are a great way of eating a variety of vegetables. You can blitz the whole mixture - the vegetables are easy on the system and the meat adds the taste and texture.


12. Make the most of the season. Start now and why not use the run up to Christmas to encourage good behaviour before Father Christmas receives a present list. It will give them a different response to 'have you been 'good' this year?' on that trip to see Santa!

You can also claim your FREE height chart and read all the hints and tips from other parents on how to make eating a healthy balanced diet fun and educational by visiting www.facebook.com/GreenGiantUK  to record their little ones growth.

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

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