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5 tweaks you can use to make healthy eating child’s play

By Rachel Meltzer Warren, MS, RDN

You turn your kids’ meals into happy faces and rainbows to encourage them to eat more healthfully — but why should the little ones have all the fun? Sometimes adults need a gentle nudge to eat better, too. Here are five dietitian-approved ways to playfully add nutrients to your plate.

Try old foods in new forms

“Vegetables can taste drastically different depending on how they’re cooked — or not cooked,” says Sally Kuzemchak, MS, RD, blogger at Real Mom Nutrition whose own kids were won over by oven-roasted chips made from the leaves of brussels sprouts, as are many adults. Another versatile example? Nuts. Try nut butters with sliced fruit or in smoothies, almond flour as an ingredient in baked goods, or peanut butter-based sauces for tofu and chicken. 

Shape it up

Carrot sticks might feel like rabbit food, but sliced carrot coins can feel fun and snacky (especially if you serve them with hummus or guacamole). “Sometimes a little visual variety is all we need to get re-interested in a food,” says Amelia Winslow, MS, RD, nutritionist and founder of the blog Eating Made Easy. Try using a spiralizer, a gadget that allows you to turn produce into pasta-esque strands, to inject new life into vegetables like zucchini and sweet potatoes.

Flavor up food

“I am a big proponent of using dips and dressings,” says Kuzemchak, who says that serving a less-than-favorite but healthy food as a vehicle for a much-loved flavoring can help someone develop a taste for the maligned item. And while for kids that might mean asparagus dipped into ketchup (as Kuzemchak has seen her younger son do), for adults that might mean dusting broccoli with Parmesan cheese, or sprinkling cinnamon on oatmeal — though nobody’s judging if those little red packets of ketchup are your thing, too. 

Prioritize presentation

Do you have a friend who painstakingly decorates her kids’ dishes to resemble their favorite superheroes, or in honor of an upcoming holiday? Before you mock her Pinterest-perfect plates, giving your meal some visual intrigue can entice you to eat good-for-you foods, too. If you’ve ever watched a cooking competition show, you’ve seen that “plating” — the visual presentation of the food on the plate — is a key judging criteria. “I like every plate to look clean, colorful and appealing,” says Winslow. Serving on beautiful dishware and adding splashes of color can help you achieve meals that entice the eye as well as the stomach.

Veggie on an empty stomach

When string beans are on your plate next to oven fries and barbecue chicken, your tendency might be to fill up on everything else. But pull them out when you’re hungry (and have no other options), and you’ll be more likely to munch away. “We have a rule in my house that, in the hour before dinner, you can only have veggies,” says Kuzemchak. It will take the edge off hunger without ruining your appetite. And bonus: you get a serving of produce before the meal even begins.

Published on February 8, 2016. 

Rachel Meltzer Warren is a NYC-area based nutrition writer, educator, and counselor, and the author of The Smart Girl’s Guide to Going Vegetarian.