Cooking

Helping children to love vegetables - Introduction

So here I am again! As I have already written on my profile, I just had a baby (..well actually it was two years ago but it feels like yesterday!) and I “had to” go through the weaning dilemma. I confess I was a little lost at the beginning but with all my willpower and above all passion I built a complete weaning plan for my daughter.

I must say that I really enjoyed it, exactly as the Love my Salad philosophy suggests and although still doubting at the beginning, I suceeded to get my child to love a lot of new ingredients and of course vegetables! I am certain that children can appreciate the real food value from the first moment if the dishes in front of them are joyful, colourful, maybe also easy to play with (yes..I know, you shouldn’t play with your food…but you can make a vegetable face for example).

Now my baby is so happy when she sees vegetables on her plate! She still can’t talk much but gets excited when she recognizes carrots or potatoes..

But let’s start from the beginning. Armed with information from every health practitioner possible, I also tried to use common sense and didn’t give her meat on the second or third day, as someone advised. I would like to point out that I am not vegetarian or vegan and I am not raising my daugher as one, I actually think that proteins should come from different products and we should eat a bit of everything. This choice came because till that moment my daughter was used to just having milk (I started to give her food at six months, as the World Health Organisation suggests).

Another important thing I would like to point out is that our children are not all the same! Everyone has his/her needs, tastes and peculiarities and that is what makes them unique!

The experiences I `m writing about are related just to my daughter and not rules for every child. But all mothers can get inspiration from them and adapt them according to their children’s needs…a mum knows what I am talking about.

Letizia