#NetGalley #Veggies #Vegan #Children #Family

Children naturally hate veggies and love sugar. Melanie shares her creative techniques to introduces veggies to kids not only by preparing delicious meals but by making them participate in the kitchen. Useful books for any new parent.

Nearly every parent has experienced a fussy eater. Children, for the most part, will tend to be very picky when it comes to their food. In her introduction to Adventures In Veggieland, author Melanie Potock explains the science behind the “Three E’s”.

With the Three E’s (expose, explore, expand), you can help teach your children how to learn to love all kinds of food, even vegetables. An explanation on how to use the book, the science behind the Three E’s, when to say yes, when to say no, are all covered. You will learn how to use the Three E’s inside and outside of the kitchen.

With this book, you needn’t start at the beginning with the vegetables. You are encouraged to simply begin with a vegetable that is in-season when you begin. So if it is Spring, start with the Asparagus or Broccoli, and so on.

Sections include:

Part One: Winter Vegetables

Beets
Butternut Squash
Parsnips
Sweet Potatoes
Turnips

Part Two: Spring Vegetables

Asparagus
Broccoli
Carrots
Peas
Spinach

Part Three: Summer Vegetables

Bell Peppers
Corn
Cucumbers
Green Beans
Tomatoes

Part Four: Autumn Vegetables

Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Kale
Pumpkin

The idea behind the Three E’s is not rocket science but implementing it is hard. Inspiration can be difficult, how does one get a finicky eater to like beets when they can be kind of strong and odd tasting the first time? Who would think of Beet Tattoos as a way of introducing veggies into your child’s diet?

After all of the recipes and ideas comes Addressing Feeding and Sensory Challenges. This helps to address additional concerns and ideas to help. After this is a Resources And Suggested Products list with website addresses included.

Innovative And Fun

I was very impressed with the ideas in the book. There are lots of good ideas and recipes with good explanations on how to use them and why they work.

There are a lot of pics throughout the book of the recipes’ end results and many of the various steps along the way as well. It is all very easy to follow and lots of fun too.

This would be the first book you want to get for any parent once their kids hit the toddler stage. I am entirely sure every parent will have more success expanding their child’s palate with this book.

See the full review and the recipe for Chocolate And Asparagus Fondue at The RecipesNow! Reviews And Recipes Magazine. This review is written in response to a complimentary copy of the book provided by the publisher in hopes of an honest review.

Adventures in Veggieland: Help Your Kids Learn to Love Vegetables with 101 Easy Activities and Recipes by Melanie Potock is currently scheduled for release on February 6 2018. It features a year’s worth of family-friendly recipes along with strategies for helping kids learn to become more adventurous eaters over time. Parents will learn how to introduce a new vegetable every week, plus creative and engaging ways to expose their kids to new foods. The book features 20 vegetables, organized by season, each with activities and recipes highlighting the program’s three phases to vegetable love: expose, explore, expand. The kids are involved in every part of the activity process from washing the vegetable to eating delicious food they helped make.

Adventures in Veggieland: Help Your Kids Learn to Love Vegetables with 101 Easy Activities and Recipes is a valiant attempt to help parents with children that boycott vegetables to give them a try, and to have some fun along the way. I like that the book is organized by season, which makes getting started and planning that much easier. I like that some of the activities give the chance for kids to feel, taste, and smell the veggies before eating them even becomes part of the conversation. I also liked the idea of getting the kids involved in the preparation and cooking of the veggies. I find that being included in the work and discussion makes most kids more willing to give something a try. I can see how it can, and would, work with many children. I also see how parents that are willing to go to these strides are already on the path to kids willing to try and do new things. However, I feel like there are too many kids that this will not work with, such as those with sensory issues. Of course, that being said my daughter would adore these activities, and some of the recipes, while my husband and son would run in terror since my husband is not a veggie fan and my son is very sensitive to flavors and likes things as bland and boring as possible.

In short, for those that are willing to go all out in getting their families to eat better, particularly in the vegetable department this would be a great addition to a home library. For those just looking for some tools to get a few more veggies, and break down some barriers, I would suggest borrowing the book from the library and trying the suggestions that might work in your home.

I absolutely loved this cookbook from the second I opened it up.

It's neat that she organized the vegetables based on the season, but what I really love is how each vegetable is separated into it's own section within the season. This makes it easy if you're craving a specific vegetable so you can go to that section and plan out your shopping and meal schedule easily. It also makes it easy if you have some vegetables in the house that you really need to use and you can easily check the book for fun ideas to use them up. Primarily this book is for teaching your kids to enjoy food which really shows in the section as she divides it into exposing your kid to the veggie with an activity, exploring the vegetable, and then expanding on that framework.

I love all the images included in the book that help to explain her already straight forward instructions. I could see buying the hardcopy of this book, not only to enjoy myself, but could see having it lay around so your child can look through it and maybe request an activity or a meal based on the images alone.

Quote from my toddler while working with beats: "wash hands... no wait. I can lick my arms and hands because there isn't any eggs"

"Adventures in Veggieland" is about proven ways to help children (ages 3–8) to learn to enjoy eating veggies. The author covered beets, butternut squash, parsnips, sweet potatoes, turnips, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, peas, spinach, bell peppers, corn, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and pumpkin. With each recipe or game, she provided cooking tips, tips for parents on how to make the experience successful, and how this activity benefits your child.

For each vegetable, the author started with a game involving that food, like making temporary tattoos using beets or playing with little plastic toys in mashed potatoes. The intent is to get the child familiar with the food through seeing, touching, and tasting it. She then provided 3 recipes for main or side dishes that use the vegetable. The intent is for the children to help the adult make the food as they're more likely to eat what they help to make. These recipes are pretty simple to do, and she suggests what parts young children can help with and what parts older children can do. The final recipe in each section is for a desert that has some of the veggie in it.

She isn't necessarily making healthy foods so she often added veggies to or made them into more familiar foods, like fries. She used bacon in several recipes (but suggested that you only use a little and use bacon that doesn't have preservatives). But the recipes may not be suitable for children with dietary restrictions as she used dairy, eggs, wheat flour, and such. However, the overall method for getting picky eaters to enjoy their veggies sounds like it should work well.

It used to be your parents would tell you "don't play with your food" well...for this cookbook it's the opposite: kids should play with their food, and hopefully they'll be inspired to actually eat their vegetables! The activities sounded pretty messy, though, and the recipe didn't sound like the most delicious way to prep veggies for kids, but still, lots of fun suggestions for making vegetables appealing to kids.

While reading this excellent book, my thoughts kept going to adults that I know that are so picky about eating their vegetables. Apparently, they came from a home that didn't energize them to eat vegetables. As a social worker, I've found that kids often start being picky about vegetables and then expand their pickiness as adults to a variety of other foods and preparation types. This book is multi-purpose: cookbook, educational book, parenting book, arts and crafts book. It is well written with clear and careful directions, excellent pictures, and fun facts. I tried a number of these recipes and they were all great. While I could not get all of my adult picky eaters to eat everything, I did convince a few to give the veggies a try. I, of course, ate them all. This is a timely format for parents, and other adults, as we live in a time where food is more expensive and sometimes of lower quality, genetically modified, or poorly ripened. There should be no food waste in our nation when there are people going hungry. An engaging, encouraging, and tasty method to prepare good food, such as this book, can help to reduce vegetable waste and improve health. I definitely recommend this book for a wide range of readers. Beyond it's educational application, it is also fun, unique, and makes some really terrific, yum yum, can't wait to eat veggies. It's for you and all your picky eaters. I was fortunate to receive this as an advance reading copy from the publishers and NetGalley and I thank them for this enjoyable book.

Subtitled "Help Your Kids Learn to Love Vegetables with 101 Easy Activities and Recipes", this was an awesome book. It's beautifully presented, colorful, full of pictures, and it's aimed at persuading kids in the 3 - 8 age range to eat their greens. My feeling is if you follow this and that doesn't succeed, then nothing will! Not that I have three to eight year olds to test it on, but I sure intend to try some of these recipes. The blurb says the book "features 20 vegetables" although some are technically fruits (which the author makes clear in her text, which is full of interesting snippets). The book is divided up by season, so there's going to be something all year to try.

I liked the way she incorporates games into the cooking and offers hints, tips, asides, and advice, always explaining why she suggests this method rather than that method. I found the book to be an engaging read just for those items, regardless of whether you try the recipes, but why wouldn't you try them? They sound great! I loved the way she incorporates suggestions about which part of the food preparation that kids who are younger and kids who are older can help with. Obviously this is common sense, but it doesn't hurt to get a reminder when it comes to kitchen safety and good hygiene practices.

I would not recommend this for the phone! The text is too small to read and if you enlarge it, the page is randomly jumping all over the place forcing you to reselect the area you were reading. It's readable on that device, but a nuisance. Obviously, it's really designed as a print book, but it worked fine on a tablet. I really liked this and I recommend it.

You can never over-estimate the importance of good nutrition for raising healthy adults-to-be, but in doing so, one cannot afford to overlook the element of stress which so few health books address. I'm happy to recommend one that automatically seeks to eliminate stress by making cookery - and eating - fun!

A wonderful cookbook to encourage children to eat their veggies. I love that it was broken down into 4 sections: Winter Vegetables, Spring Vegetables, Summer Vegetables and Autumn Vegetables. I love that Potock does this to easily demonstrate what is in season and how to prepare it.

I wish there were more photographs of the finished recipe. For my kids, seeing the finished products gets them excited to recreate it, even if it doesn't come out perfect, whereas not seeing it dulls their excitement level and their interest in attempting to try it out.

Adventures in Veggieland is a well organized book which explains how to encourage children to enjoy eating vegetables. The explanations are clear, and the photographs are descriptive. The book follows the plan to Expose children to new vegetables, Explore, and Expand with new recipes. Except that I was taught never to play with my food, I believe that this is a book which will encourage parents to get into the kitchen with their children and encourage them to learn to love those veggies. And, any extra time parents can spend with their children is valuable.

This is a great book to help young kids explore new vegetables & also has some great recipes! I love how it is broken into sections with each vegetable. The vegetables included in the book are beets, butternut squash, parsnips, sweet potatoes, turnips, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, peas, spinach, bell peppers, corn, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale & pumpkin. In this current generation, most kids are being fed fast food & pre-packaged/boxed foods. While this may take a little extra work, in the long run it is so beneficial for a child to learn to love the foods that bring health & nourish the body!

This is an absolutely brilliant book, no doubt about it. Aimed at encouraging children to try new vegetables and learn to love them, it's based on author Melanie's three-step programme of exposure, which starts with exposing your child to veggies by using sensory, hands-on, and educational activities. The activities and recipes she has included here mean that children are introduced to textures, tastes, temperatures, and various other aspects of new foods. Split into sections and covering 20 vegetables, there are various recipes and activities for each, including a sweet treat - showing children that vegetables aren't just a chore but they can also be fun and a treat!

The book starts off with a very thorough and informative introduction on parenting strategies for exposing children to new food, explaining some of the science behind introducing new foods and incorporating them into a diet, and how to address exposure to food when you are outside the family home.

My favourite element of this book is that you can go to the contents and pick a vegetable, and from there you'll find a selection of activities or recipes. That way you can tackle one new food item at a time.

The ideas are all great with plenty of clear photographs as well as follow-up information at the end of the chapter as to what your child will benefit from the chosen activity. All in all, this is a brilliant book for parents of young ones. 5-star!