Want your kids to eat more vegetables? Try arranging their plates differently.
How you pair foods on the dinner plate greatly affects how much of each food kids will eat, both at home and in the school cafeteria, a new study from Texas A&M University suggests. If the “featured items” are favorites like chicken nuggets, pizza, and hamburgers, then they’ll focus on that to the exclusion of veggies, but when it’s newer or less-loved food like deli sliders, the reverse happens and kids gravitate toward vegetables, the Washington Post reports.
In fact, research shows that kids eat four times as many vegetables when these less-conventional food pairings are made versus their faves.
“Normally, vegetables will lose the competition that they’re in — the competition with all the other delicious food on your plate. Vegetables might not lose that battle for everyone, but they do for most of us,” says food psychologist Traci Mann, Ph.D. of the University of Minnesota. “It’s just about making it a little harder to make the wrong choices, and a little easier to make the right ones.”
The study appears in the journal Food and Nutrition Sciences.
Give your shopping list a mini-makeover with our Daily Challenge for educated eating.
– See more at: http://wellbeingwire.meyouhealth.com/featured/get-kids-to-eat-more-veggie-with-smarter-pairings/#sthash.ZquZwtUc.dpuf