How to get kids to eat vegetables, without the battle

A child who refuses vegetables is doing nothing strange. Between the ages of 2 and 6 almost every child turns down what is new or bitter, and almost every child grows out of it. What makes the difference is not persuading, it is repeating: one small taste, often, without pressure. Most children need 8 to 15 tastes before a new food becomes good, sometimes more. A two-year-old can tell from across the room that the broccoli has touched the potato.

This page is the whole picture: why children refuse vegetables, the number that changes things, what works at the table and what backfires. Each part gets a page of its own over the coming weeks.

Why kids hate vegetables

Three things happen at once. The first is taste: many vegetables are slightly bitter, and children taste bitter more strongly than adults do. The second is novelty: around the age of 2, children become cautious about anything they do not recognise, plate included. This is called food neophobia, it is normal between 2 and 6, and for most children it fades on its own (Dovey, 2008). The third is autonomy: a toddler discovers that saying no works, and the plate is one of the few places where that no has an immediate effect.

None of the three means you are doing something wrong. It is the age. What you can do is make tasting easier and take the fight out of it. The name for this phase and how to get through it gets its own article.

The number that changes things: 8 to 15 tastes

A child learns to like a food by tasting it, not by hearing about it. In a home trial with parents of children aged 2 to 6, parents offered one small taste of a disliked vegetable every day for two weeks. After those two weeks most of the children liked the vegetable more and ate more of it, far more than the children whose parents had been given nutrition advice alone (Wardle, 2003).

The rule of thumb that follows is 8 to 15 tastes, sometimes more. The American Academy of Pediatrics puts it at "as many as 10 or more times". A lick counts. So does a bite that comes straight back out, because the flavour has already made contact. Most parents give up after three tries, right at the point where it starts to work. How to count tastes without turning it into a project gets its own article.

No pressure: what works at the table

• Small. One piece, not a portion. A small taste can be faced, a pile is a fight.
• Often. The same vegetable a few times a week, for weeks. Variety comes later.
• Next to something familiar. The new piece sits beside what your child already eats. The plate stays safe.
• Eat it yourself. Children watch what you eat, not what you say. Sit down, eat the same thing, say nothing about it.
• No commentary. No "just try it", no "but it's nice". A piece that gets ignored is less frightening next time.
• A fixed moment. One piece at the same time every day. The repetition does the work, not your powers of persuasion.

What a week looks like

Pick one vegetable your child says no to, ideally a mild one: carrot, cucumber, peas. At dinner, put one small piece on a separate saucer next to the plate. Say something once ("that one is your taste") and then leave it alone. Eat the same thing yourself. Whatever your child does with it, a lick, a bite, a bite that comes back out, or nothing at all, is fine. Make a mark whenever there was contact with the flavour.

After two weeks, look at the chart rather than at how it felt. Usually you will see the piece disappearing more often. Then you pick the next vegetable, and the first one keeps arriving at the table. A child who has worked out that tasting is safe and that tastes are counted starts to speed up on their own.

What backfires

• Forcing. "You sit there until it is finished" teaches a child that vegetables are a punishment. They may eat tonight and refuse for a year.
• The clean plate. The finish-your-plate rule puts the amount at the centre. Learning to like something is about the flavour, and the flavour is there in the first bite.
• Pudding as the reward. "Vegetables first, then pudding" makes pudding more valuable and the vegetable less so. Exactly backwards.
• Cooking twice. A separate plate for your child removes every reason to ever try anything new.
• Comparing. "Look, your sister eats it." Nobody learns to like a vegetable in order to beat a sibling.
• Hiding and nothing else. Vegetables in the sauce fill the stomach but teach the tongue nothing. There is a rule further down that holds both together.

Reward the taste, never the clean plate

Opinions on rewards differ, and it is worth being straight about it. A British trial found that a sticker for tasting, or praise, had children eating more of the vegetable after twelve days, and that the effect still held three months later (Cooke, 2011). Tasting alone, with nothing to mark it, had faded by then.

The rule that comes out of it is simple. Reward the bite, never the empty plate, and never with food. A tick on a chart, a sticker, a card in an app: it is a record that a taste happened, not a trade. The child is not doing it for the sticker, the child can see that tasting counts.

Eating together, and one question

The strongest help costs nothing and is already in your day: eating together. Children eat what they see being eaten around them. A parent who helps themselves to the green beans without saying a word does more than ten encouragements.

One question goes with it, after dinner or at the end of the day: what did you taste today. Not what did you eat, not did you finish your vegetables. Tasting is the behaviour you want to see, so that is what you ask about. It takes a minute, it is not an interrogation, and it turns tasting into something to report rather than something to argue over.

When your toddler will not eat anything

Between the ages of 1 and 2, growth slows down and appetite goes with it. A toddler who suddenly eats very little, or almost nothing for a few days, is usually just listening to their body. Count the week, not the meal: across seven days it usually adds up.

What helps: fixed meal times, small portions, few snacks and drinks shortly before dinner, and no fight. What does not help: forcing, distracting with a screen, or leaving the plate on the table for an hour. Why a toddler stops eating and what actually helps gets its own article.

A fussy eater, or just a child

Most children who get called fussy eat twenty to thirty different things, grow normally and are in the phase described above. They need time and repetition, not a label.

There is a line, though. Talk to your doctor if your child is losing weight or not growing, if they eat fewer than about twenty different foods, if whole groups are missing (no vegetables at all, no fruit at all), if they gag or panic at new food, or if the worry is getting too big for you as a parent. That is a different situation from the one this page describes, and there is help for it. What counts as ordinary fussiness and what does not gets its own article.

Which vegetables work first

Start with the ones most children find easy: sweet, mild, crunchy. Carrot, cucumber, sweetcorn, peas, pepper, cherry tomato, sweet potato. Bitter and soft vegetables (sprouts, spinach, cooked greens) come later, once tasting is already normal.

Raw is often easier than cooked: a piece of raw carrot is crunchy and sweet, while cooked carrot is soft and tastes different. Offer the same vegetable in different shapes as well. A child who refuses boiled cauliflower will sometimes eat raw florets with a dip. The 20 easiest vegetables to start with, and how to serve each one, gets its own article.

Hiding vegetables: is it allowed

Yes, and not only that. Courgette in the pasta sauce or spinach in a smoothie gets vegetables in, and on a bad day that is a result. But a child learns nothing from a vegetable they cannot see. The tongue only learns from what it tastes.

The rule that holds both together: hide whatever you like, and always put one visible piece next to the plate. That piece is the taste. Dinner works tonight and the learning carries on anyway.

How Project Food does this at the table

Project Food is an app on your phone, for the whole family. After dinner you tap what was tasted, person by person. Every new plant becomes a card in the family collection and every taste counts: a plant's card goes to silver after 5 tastes and to gold after 10. That way you can see exactly where your child stands with broccoli without having to keep it in your head. The family target is 30 different plants a week, counted together, nobody against anybody. Nothing beyond that: no diet, no advice about weight, no promises. A counter for tastes, and something to talk about at the table.

Worth remembering

• Saying no to vegetables is normal between 2 and 6, and it passes.
• 8 to 15 tastes, sometimes more. A lick counts.
• Small, often, next to something familiar, without commentary.
• Reward the taste, never the clean plate, never with food.
• Eat together and ask one question after dinner: what did you taste today.
• Forcing, the clean plate and pudding as a bargaining chip all backfire.
• Weight loss, fewer than twenty different foods, gagging or panic: talk to your doctor.