30 Ingenious Ways Parents Tricked Their Kids Into Eating Healthy Foods (2024)

Rokas Laurinavičius

Author, BoredPanda staff

Denis Tymulis

Author, Community member

Lauren Caswell

My son was not into many food textures, and meat was one of big challenges (and pulses etc but that's another story). He was into being a tiger, and came home from a night at my mum's talking about how he had gazelle balls. I asked mum: they were mince meatballs! She took him to the supermarket and told him they were both tigers looking for prey. He helped hunt the gazelle balls from the butchery department 😆

Carol Emory

My son hated broccoli as a child..but the TA's at my son's school got him to eat it by saying for every broccoli he ate, he got an M&M. They'd let him pick from the bowl. Eventually the M&M's were dropped from the deal when he finally realized that broccoli wasn't so bad. I also got him to eat spinach by pretending I was totally grossed out every time he ate it. He got a kick out of watching my face go sour and pretend I was gagging with every bite he took.

Hans

For us, living by example works. Every afternoon, and on weekends also every morning, we put a large plate on the living room table, and it has a seasonal choice of mouth ready pieces from two to four raw-edible vegetables (like cucumber or kohlrabi), berries, and fruits on it. Not everyone likes everything, but everyone picks something, the children usually by visiting the table while playing. Actually, the small ones sometimes have so much from the plate that they may only have a small dinner. No worries then, though, if they at the main meals pick just pasta and no cooked vegetables...

Lauren Caswell

My son was not into many food textures, and meat was one of big challenges (and pulses etc but that's another story). He was into being a tiger, and came home from a night at my mum's talking about how he had gazelle balls. I asked mum: they were mince meatballs! She took him to the supermarket and told him they were both tigers looking for prey. He helped hunt the gazelle balls from the butchery department 😆

Carol Emory

My son hated broccoli as a child..but the TA's at my son's school got him to eat it by saying for every broccoli he ate, he got an M&M. They'd let him pick from the bowl. Eventually the M&M's were dropped from the deal when he finally realized that broccoli wasn't so bad. I also got him to eat spinach by pretending I was totally grossed out every time he ate it. He got a kick out of watching my face go sour and pretend I was gagging with every bite he took.

Hans

For us, living by example works. Every afternoon, and on weekends also every morning, we put a large plate on the living room table, and it has a seasonal choice of mouth ready pieces from two to four raw-edible vegetables (like cucumber or kohlrabi), berries, and fruits on it. Not everyone likes everything, but everyone picks something, the children usually by visiting the table while playing. Actually, the small ones sometimes have so much from the plate that they may only have a small dinner. No worries then, though, if they at the main meals pick just pasta and no cooked vegetables...