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!