Have you ever been part of a workplace where food is shared? And if so, have you ever had the experience of eating food because it was within your line of vision and out in the open? Don't worry, the purpose of this post is not to shame you about those eating behaviors. I, too, have cut a donut into 6 pieces with a plastic butter knife and had some.
I want to introduce you to the same concept as it applies to vegetable intake. You see, though I had a sense that if I provided a larger variety of vegetables and bigger servings of them at supper, my entire family would eat more of them, I haven't until recently applied this.
What has worked well is to wash, chop and place all available vegetables on a plate at the center of the table at meal time. I also provide as many tasty dips as we have. Let’s face it- at times I don’t want plain veggies and I also want my kids to have positive associations with vegetables. Dip can make eating vegetables more joyful! Sometimes I steam frozen vegetables and add them to the magic veggie plate as well. This helps to encourage intake because the vegetables are accessible to all at the table, they are within everyone’s line of sight and dip is an option.
When going out for the day or when going on a road trip: I wash, chop and pack any variety of vegetables that we have available. Bonus points for veggies that don't need to be chopped such as snap peas, small carrots and cherry tomatoes.
I wondered if this vegetable belief of mine could be supported by evidence. I found a review article that looked at interventions aimed at increasing vegetable intake. Here is an excerpt and indeed it appears that providing a greater quantity of vegetables and providing a greater variety of vegetables increased their consumption:
“An alternative approach to encourage vegetable consumption focuses on changing the environment and increasing consumption through increasing the provision of vegetables…(which) resulted in increased selection and/or consumption of vegetables in children and adults, through the increased provision of vegetables (n = 20), through the increased provision of a variety of vegetables (n=7)…”
This review article was validating of my own veggie serving instincts. Similar to the “If you build it they will come”, vegetables seem to be “If you give a big serving or provide a variety, they will eat them”. Coming from a family where supper was “meat/starch/one vegetable”, it was hard to break the idea of what supper structure should look like and and to serve a plentiful variety of vegetables! Certainly, this method is not perfect and it may not work for all, but I encourage you to think about packing vegetables when you go camping or on a road trip and putting out as many as you can with meal times to help get more vegetables.
Tell me: what are your favorite veggies and ways to incorporate them?
An extra note:
Some of the studies analyzed in this review article are those of the disgraced nutrition researcher Brian Wansink (more on that drama here if you are so interested), however, if you ignore those, the interventions that showed an increase in vegetable consumption as highlighted above include those where individuals were served a bigger portion of vegetables than control (soup starter vs none or 360 g of vegetables instead of 270 g) and those where individuals were offered the choice from a greater variety of vegetables.
The study I’m talking about is this one:
Appleton, K. M., Hemingway, A., Saulais, L., Dinnella, C., Monteleone, E., Depezay, L., Morizet, D., Armando Perez-Cueto, F. J., Bevan, A., & Hartwell, H. (2016). Increasing vegetable intakes: Rationale and systematic review of published interventions. European Journal of Nutrition, 55(3), 869–896. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-015-1130-8
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