Going Green with Green Beans

I was looking up the nutritional status of vegetables on the world’s healthiest foods and I was inspired to get my kids to eat their veggies. My kids eat more veggies in the summer when we can pick them ourselves, but vegetables found in the supermarket just aren’t as tasty as fresh, organic veggies from the picking farm. So I bought some organic green beans at Trader Joe’s and decided I was going to try to get my kids to eat some steamed green beans.

I was especially interested in having my kids try the green beans because green beans are full of vitamin K, which is produced by the beneficial bacteria in the gut. Easy bruising can be a symptom of a deficiency, so I suspect my daughter is slightly deficient in vitamin K.

At lunch with A, I steamed a handful of beans for about 5 minutes until they were tender. After drizzling olive oil and sprinkling salt on them, I went into infomercial mode saying: THESE ARE DELICIOUS! THEY TASTE LIKE CANDY! THEY ARE SO SALTY AND YUMMY! THEY TASTE LIKE POTATO CHIPS! My son ate them all, and was soon yelling: “I want MORE green beans with OLIVE OIL AND SALT” as I was rushing to steam another handful.

I knew getting my daughter to eat them wasn’t going to be as easy, and I used a very different tactic with her at dinnertime–I gave her a plateful when I knew she was hungry and said she could watch TV while she ate her green beans. And it worked. Although some might be appalled by my tactic, I was thrilled that the “mindless eating in front of the TV” worked to my advantage.

Trying to get everyone to eat their vegetables doesn’t always work–sometimes they run screaming. The next night, inspired by my success with green beans, I roasted some brussel sprouts, which my son threw on the ground and my daughter tried one small piece of and didn’t like. I thought they were delicious. And, by the way, brussel sprouts have a ridiculous amont of vitamin K in them. Lucky me.