Adventures in Veggieland

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!

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!

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 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.

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"

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.