By Sharon Hopkins

Many parents strive to ensure that their children eat vegetables. Some meet with complete success, others with very little success. Veggies contain many vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients that a body needs to main good health and energy. They help protect against the effect of aging and reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease.

If you want your child to eat vegetables, improve your own attitude towards eating them. Early in age, child tends to mimic either or both parents for almost everything. If you as a parent dislike any particular vegetable, your child will do the same.

How you eat and what you eat affects your child directly. If you want your child to eat something that you dislike, you have to make an attempt to eat it first and then encourage your child to try a spoonful or plateful of it. It is not easy to get children to like any new food the first time. Keep reintroducing them from time to time.

Some tricks of trade that you can try to get your child to eat vegetables.

- Blend vegetables in a blender and add them to spaghetti sauce or liven up any non-veg dish.

- Keep a plateful of green salad, either in raw or grated form. You can toss up a salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, lettuce, carrots, cabbage, onion, and radish and so on. You can have salads either at mealtime or in between meals, as a snack.

- While making sandwiches for lunch, add lettuce, tomato slice or carrots in between. Chicken, tuna or pasta salads taste great with dash of vegetables in it.

- If your child thrives on noodles, add boiled or lightly steamed vegetables to it.

- While making pizza, add chopped broccoli, spinach, etc in addition to other toppings.

- Vegetables with a dash of melted cheese added to soups changes the flavor altogether.

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