The truth about getting kids to eat veggies

Jody Allen is well-aware of how difficult it can be to get your kids to eat their veggies.

While smug mums litter their social media accounts showing their toddlers happily chewing away on broccoli, peas, carrots and kale chips, the rest of us can't get our children to even take one bite of a vegetable.

Even if they are SLATHERED in melted cheese.

In the latest episode of Honey Mums, Deb Knight talks to Liz Ellis about her battle with secondary infertility and catches up with Jody Allen from Stay At Home Mum about how to feed kids veggies. (Article continues.)

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Well, it turns out parents have been fed a whole bunch of lies when it comes to why some children don't eat vegetables, and Allen – founder of the popular Stay At Home Mum parenting site – has happily busted all the myths.

"I know all about fussy eaters," she told Deb Knight on the Honey Mums podcast. "My boys are 10 and 11 now and still don't voluntarily eat a vegetable.

Jody confesses to "hiding" vegetables in spaghetti sauce.

"Everyone says that they should be eating them on their own -- I don't know what the secret is -- but I've been doing some research on toddlers and how when you introduce food you've got to introduce them one-by-one, and that sometimes you have to feed them the same food 26 times before they'll actually eat it," she reveals.

But all kids are different, and some will be persistent in using their vegetables as playthings to be strewn around the kitchen and sometimes aimed at their diligent parents.

While Jody says neither of her boys has yet developed scurvy -- although she is constantly threatening them saying they will -- her kids are just fussy.

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"Some kids are just fussier than others," she says. "I must admit that you do have to watch them when they're little so you know there's nothing physically wrong with them, there's no tongue-tie, there's no food allergies, and that can be pretty scary for new mums."

She says that's why it's important to introduce new foods, including vegetables, on their own so any health concerns can be quickly identified.

"The problem with mixing them -- say broccoli and cheese -- just say the little ones are dairy intolerant," she says. "So every time they eat broccoli they're going to associate it with an upset tummy, which might be the reason. Or it could just be that it's a green vegetable."

If they don't have tongue-tie or food allergies, sadly your kids are most likely just fussy, which is when hiding vegetables in other dishes comes in.

Jody says she and her boys will cook meals together such as pork meatballs and put "loads of veggies in it" including mushrooms, carrots and zucchini. They'll happily eat the end product, but not the vegetables on their own.

She also points to human evolution, saying back in the day any food with a sour taste was identified as poison and spat out, which is why kids crave sweet foods.

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