Adding Extra Veggies To Every Bite. Is It Front And Center Or Do You Sneak It In?

So I have two toddlers and sometimes my little guys just aren’t in the mood for an extra helping of veggies and I don’t have the energy to push back. It’s a struggle sometimes but we work through it. While I don’t advocate dosing the kiddo’s food with veggies as standard practice I can see how some people might find it useful for super-picky eaters. There are a couple cookbooks that advocate this – both The Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious are cookbooks designed to hide extra veg in meals traditionally popular with kids.

There are a few problems that I have with this. The main one being that if I’m sneaking in veggies and making these foods more nutritious the whole point is they don’t know. So I’m influencing their later food choices. Sure, I could add a hidden serving of veggies in their cupcakes  - but in the future when they are selecting which foods to eat those items won’t have hidden veggies and although the version I prepared may have been extra nutritious the standard variety available to them won’t be. I’d be setting my children up for a lifetime of bad food choices.

The second problem with this method is that who has the time/energy when you work and have kids to have pureed veggies sitting around? I think this problem may have recently been solved. Strolling the Costco aisles the other day I found Hooray Puree in the freezer section. It’s a box of pureed veggies including packets of carrots, cauliflower, spinach, butternut squash, and broccoli. Sure, I could sneak them into things like they do in their brownie recipe.  But how much extra nutrition would they really be getting per serving? I think if you’re baking desserts anyways, why not add them as an extra ingredient to reduce sugar and increase moisture – much like people do with applesauce as a baking substitution.

But – why not just use the purees as a base for yummy veggie dishes? Make them the star of the show, not just the understudy! Just like I keep cans of tomatoes in the pantry and vegetable stock in the cupboard – these veggie purees are now one of my standard freezer items. I shall be using them as the bases for sauces and more and will keep you posted with my progress.

Boo for sneaky food, Yay for ready to use veggie puree!

Healthy Snack

Popcorn is one of my children’s favorite snacks. It’s also a great way to sneak in some extra B vitamins! By adding nutritional yeast onto the popped corn, it not only adds a great cheesy flavor but plenty of B vitamins and protein.

Nutritional yeast is a non-active form of yeast that the Ancient Egyptians prized for its health-boosting qualities. Rich in amino acids, a complete protein and fantastic source of B complex vitamins, nutritional yeast is a healthy and tasty addition to just about any food, including freshly popped popcorn.

Be careful when adding the nutritional yeast on top it’s so fine that some of it can become airborne and make you sneeze.

 photo credit: asweetsuccess

For more info about nutritional yeast check out the wikipedia page on nutritional yeast

Local Tofu

Did you know that most Tofu manufactured in the US is made with genetically modified soybeans? This also leads to the increased needs for extra pesticides and fertilizers during their farming. Similar to the artisinal cheese movement, there is a growing surge of artisnal tofu producers who use organic and locally sourced soybeans to make small batches of preservative free, fresh tofu.

Image Credit: photo credit: jonathan mcintosh

Here in Chicago, two such producers are Pheonix Beans and Tiny Greens, which acquires its organic soybeans from Ackerman Farms in Mortn IL. While Phoenix Beans makes about 1200 blocks of tofu a day, Tiny Greens can make 64. Both are available at local farmers’ markets and over 70% of the restaurants in Chinatown in Chicago use Phoenix Bean’s fresh tofu.

Find them at the Chicago Green City Market and at the Andersonville Farmer’s Market