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I had to laugh at the dinner table tonight when my 5 and 7 year old children engaged in verbal battle over which type of squash was better: Acorn or Delicata.

As my daughter groaned about her Acorn squash, I thought about my friend Charlotte and the experiment that she started doing with her son about a year ago. They decided to eat their way through the alphabet - one vegetable at a time. She called this journey The Great Big Vegetable Challenge, and regularly documents their trials, tribulations, success stores and recipes on her blog. I told my kids about their experiment and they thought it would be really fun to try it, too. They especially liked that they would get to score each vegetable every time they tasted it.

Kids excited to participate in a vegetable-eating-contest? Are these kids nuts, you may be wondering. No, they are just normal kids who see their parents eating well and help in the kitchen whenever they can.

Our new challenge takes the exact opposite approach of the new books by Seinfeld and Lapine, and their respective Deceptive and Sneaky tactics to get kids to eat their vegetables. While it may be easier to hide vegetables from children on the short term, it is certainly more fun and exciting to enter a Challenge like Charlotte’s. Since we eat fresh and seasonal produce anyway, we thought it would be fun to give it a try and let the kids participate as much as possible. We will be celebrating produce…and giving it a score!

Even though I don’t lie awake nights wondering if my kids are eating enough, it isn’t difficult to see why some parents get worried when they try to feed their young children.

• They don’t realize that it is normal for children to be skeptical about new foods. From an evolutionary perspective, this is a built in safety mechanism. If a child is out foraging and finds something new, they darned well better use caution - or else they could get poisoned.
• Most kids are unpredictable about their love-hate relationship with foods. They eat their favorite food with gusto for awhile and then Wham! It’s a no-go for the next few days, weeks or months!
• Out of frustration, parents limit their children’s menus to the few foods they will consistently accept. While this may seem okay in the short term, this deprives kids of the opportunity to find new favorites and try new flavors and textures. And the cycle continues…
• If parents enjoy a variety of healthy and delicious foods during family meals, the kids will eventually follow suit. Remember - no pressure! They won’t let themselves starve to death!
• It is impossible to please everyone all of the time. Do the best you can and serve a variety of foods to create a balanced meal as often as you can. Everyone will find something to eat at the table.

Your kids are normal. Lose the guilt - we have enough to worry about. How about putting some of that energy into expanding your family’s menus. Care to join us in our Vegetable Challenge?