My Little Veggie Monster

 Most people who see Little One eat are always shocked for two reasons:

1. She is an eating machine!  The kid is so tiny, but can eat more than some adults can.  Point in case, tonight she ate a grilled pork chop, a side of mashed potatoes, and a huge serving of roasted vegetables! Then she ate two kiwis and had two glasses of milk.  She is 3 years old and weighs 28.5 lbs.  With the way she eats, I am surprised she isn’t heavier!
2. She absolutely loves greens!  There isn’t a vegetable she doesn’t like (so far as we can tell).  I don’t know about kohlrabi, because I never serve it. That’s one veg that Mama doesn’t like!

I hope that her love of veggies isn’t a passing trend.  I absolutely love that we can feed her anything and she’ll eat it.  Well, with the exception of French Fries or overly sugary foods.  We’ve found that she just doesn’t like those things.  Not complaining though! I keep waiting for the day that friends have warned me about.  Friends always tell me that one day, Little One will wake up and be picky, picky, picky and that all kids go through the phase where they don’t want to eat anything their parents serve them.

While it may one day happen that she just refuses to eat her veggies, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that that day never comes.  She inhales cucumber and eats broccoli like it’s going out of fashion.  The funny thing is that we’ve never forced vegetables on her.  Hubby and I eat lots (and lots) of veggies, so they’ve always been included in all our meals.  We feed Little One everything we eat, so there’s nothing unusual to her about veggies (or tofu, Quinoa, sushi, lentils, etc).

One thing I have found that I think may be one of the reasons Little One enjoys her veggies (other than to bright colours and the flavour) is that she is included in the growing process of her food.  Little One helps me plant our veggies from seed and watches them grow into plants.  It’s an amazing process to witness and it’s so much fun to share this with her.

She may not fully understand the scientific happenings, but she sees her peas and beans growing into plants with flowers and then eventually yielding something that is edible.  I let her help me pick our vegetables and wash them too.  

My Mom always tells me that when I was a kid, I didn’t like to eat and that I used to fall asleep at the table because she wouldn’t let me leave the table until I finished my supper.  She also told me stories of all those poor kids in China who had no food and that still never helped.  I’m wondering if every parent has uttered those stories to their kids in order to coerce them into eating?

In any case, I’ve got a little veggie monster who loves food. Surprisingly, even Avocado & Cucumber Ice Cream!