VITAL SIGNSNutrition: StealthyVegetables: GettingChildren to Eat MoreVITAL SIGNSNutrition: StealthyVegetables: GettingChildren to Eat More

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: August 02,
2011
Good news for parents:
You can get your children
to eat zucchini, broccoli,
tomatoes, cauliflower
and squash - and like
them.
Researchers at
Pennsylvania State
University substituted
those vegetables,
puréed, in children's
meals, reducing each
meal's calories but
keeping its weight the
same. One day a week for
three weeks, 40 children
were randomly given
regular meals, meals with
three times as much
vegetable content, or
meals with four times as
much vegetable content.
The children were told to
eat as much or as little as
they wanted.
The 3- to 6-year olds,
attendees at a day care
center, consumed the
same amount of food by
weight, regardless of
whether the meals
included puréed
vegetables. But those
who ate the meals with
quadrupled vegetable
content increased their
total vegetable intake by
73 grams and reduced
their calorie intake by
about 12 percent during
the study period.
Asked to rate the taste
as yucky, O.K. or yummy,
more than 70 percent of
the children rated the
vegetable-adulterated
meals as O.K. or yummy.
The study was published
online July 20 in The
American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition.
"The controversial
aspect of this is that it's
deceptive," said Maureen
K. Spill, the lead author
and a postdoctoral fellow
at Penn State. "But it's
just another way of
making recipes healthier.
It's still important to get
children to learn what
vegetables look and
taste like."