From our colleagues at AgDay’s Packer TV, one researcher at Kansas State University offers tips to help parents foster a love for fruits and vegetables, even before potentially picky eaters are born.
Richard Rosenkranz, associate professor in the department of Food, Nutrition, Dietetics and Health at Kansas State University says before birth, babies learn about their environment, including by experiencing the foods a pregnant mother eats.
Rosenkranz says that can help their sense of taste and affinity for vegetables into childhood.
“Women who are exposed to more of these bitter polyphenolics in vegetables then have kids who are more receptive to them when they try them the first time,” he says.
The researcher also stresses that children should continue to be exposed to vegetables through helping cook, and that parents shouldn’t hide them in dishes because that can teach kids that vegetables are “bad.”