5 Tips to Encourage Your Child to Eat More Veggies This Veganuary

With the start of a new year comes fresh opportunities to embrace healthy habits—cue Veganuary! This month-long initiative is the perfect time to encourage your child to explore the world of veggies and plant-based meals in a fun and positive way. In this blog, we’ll share five simple strategies that you can easily implement as a busy, working parent to help your child enjoy eating more vegetables and discover the joy of trying new, plant-based dishes. After all, eating more veggies is always a good idea!

What is Veganuary?

Rooted in a compassionate ethos toward animals and a commitment to conscious consumption, Veganuary is a global movement driven by a UK nonprofit organisation. Its goal? To encourage non-vegans to embark on a 31-day journey of exploring plant-based living, with a particular focus on making ethical, sustainable food choices.

Veganuary aims to show people that it is still possible to enjoy delicious, nutritious meals, while leaving the animals off our plate. If you’re giving Veganuary a go this month, it’s also the perfect opportunity to try more plant-based meals with your child and show them how tasty (and fun) vegetables can be.

Eat the Rainbow

Visually appealing food can kickstart your child’s interest in trying something new. Next time you’re at the supermarket or are completing your online grocery shopping, try picking up a range of different coloured vegetables for your child to try. Even better—why not get your child involved by letting them choose the veggies they’d like to try? You might even discover some new favourites together!

Consider the popular phrase “eat the rainbow” and look out for veggies such as yellow sweetcorn, red tomatoes, purple aubergines and green courgettes. A quick online search using this phrase will provide you with helpful suggestions to inspire your next shopping list.

Bring this philosophy to life when serving veggies to your child by mixing and matching vibrant colours to create an appealing and playful plate. For example, brighten up a plain green leafy salad with a pop of red by adding a few cherry tomatoes to make it more visually exciting.

Armed with an array of beautiful eye-catching vegetables, you stand in good stead to get your child more interested in trying them.

Delicious Pasta Sauces

Why not try using your blender or food processor to whip up a delicious vegetable-based sauce? They’re perfect for quick, after-school and work meals like pasta, which can be great for packed lunches the next day!

How about making your own guacamole and salsa dips for a delicious, plant-based Mexican-themed dinner? You can easily find plenty of simple yet tasty recipes online to creatively "hide" veggies and serve them in new, exciting ways to your family. And if your child enjoys cooking, you can even involve them in the preparation process.

Use these moments of bonding over cooking to help them explore the different colours and textures in their meal, and to show them just how versatile veggies can be. Remember, getting them to try new foods earlier in life can set them up to be more open to trying new things in the future too.

Eventually, you can use times like this to expand their understanding by discussing where their food comes from and the benefits of “eating the rainbow”, as different coloured vegetables have different nutritional benefits.

Top tip: To speed up future mealtimes, why not try batch-cooking some pasta dishes with homemade vegetable sauces alongside your child? You can then freeze them, making dinner preparation quick and easy in the weeks ahead.

Time for Pizza

Who doesn’t love pizza? Another easy idea is to buy a ready-made vegan pizza with minimal toppings, such as a margherita, and then asking your child to add vegetable toppings of their choice. Mushrooms, tomatoes, sliced olives, spinach, peppers, sweetcorn, and onions are just a few ideas to try. And if they’re quite daring, they might even enjoy fruit, like pineapple, on their pizza!

Simply set out some bowls with a few different options to choose from and allow them to get involved with placing them on the pizza. It’s a great way to make mealtimes fun with relatively minimal effort, especially after a busy day at work!

Accessible Veggie Snacks

Sometimes, the main reason your child reaches for a bag of crisps over an apple, is because it is more readily available. However, keeping freshly cut vegetables for snacks in the fridge will make healthy snacking a breeze for both you and your child.

Consider vegetables like carrots, peppers, and courgettes, sliced or cut into age-appropriate finger foods for your child, paired with a few delicious dips such as hummus.

Try a few different options with your child to discover their favourites and prepare them in advance so they’re ready to grab from the fridge during mid-week.

By setting a good example and eating vegetables yourself, you'll make it feel natural for your child to choose veggies as a snack over less nutritious options. This, in turn, will encourage them to eat more vegetables. Remember, this doesn't mean completely saying "no" to crisps and popcorn; it simply means showing your child that there are other options available and emphasising the importance of a balanced diet.

Silly Faces

If you have a little bit of time to spare and fancy getting creative, you can try cutting or arranging fruit, vegetables and other plant-based foods to create fun characters, animals or silly faces on your child’s plate.

Don’t worry - you don’t have to create the next world-famous masterpiece! A few carrot sticks here, some sliced blueberries for eyes there, and before you know it, you'll have created a fun, playful face. It can be as simple or as creative as you like—just remember to cut, squash, or slice the food into appropriate finger-food sizes for your child’s age. Strapped for time? Encourage your child to do it instead and exchange fun little stories to make mealtimes a bonding activity.

Once again, you can find lots of inspiration online if you’re out of ideas. Your child will enjoy discovering the latest face or animal and will begin to view the act of eating healthy food as a positive experience.

There are lots of fun and different ways to introduce more veggies into your child’s diet - it’s all about finding the ones that work for you and your lifestyle. You can keep things super simple or get as creative as you wish. Which ones will you try this Veganuary?