Healthy Eating and Children: Fun Ways to Encourage Kids to Eat Their Vegetables

Children can be notoriously fussy and picky when it comes to cleaning off the greens from their plates. Sadly, more often than not, vegetables and kids don’t really get along well with each other. However, you, as a parent, don’t have to let this pickiness deter you. Instead, you can be a little sneaky, a tad innovative and make sure that your child learns to eat and love veggies.

Here are some ways to encourage healthy eating in children:

1. Add Vegetables to Kiddie Favorites 

One of the easiest ways to ‘sneak’ in veggies is by adding them to favorite foods. Spaghetti can easily have sauce made with grated carrots and beets along with the meat. Broccoli can be mashed and mixed with potatoes for croquettes. Spinach can be blended and mixed with some cheese and macaroni for an ‘alien-green’ Mac and Cheese.

2. Take Kids Vegetable Shopping 

Want kids to know their veggies and take to them naturally? Let them accompany you when you head to the farmer’s market or the store to pick up the week’s supply of veggies. Let them see, touch, smell the different vegetables and chances are they’d be more willing to try them out once they come home.

3. Let Them Pick Their Own Veggies, One Day of the Week 

Kids love responsibility and choice. So, give them both and let them pick a vegetable of their choice for dinner once a week. However, lay down the condition that it can’t be the same vegetable for two consecutive weeks. So, you can’t have potatoes this week and next. Make it interesting, fun and exciting. Look up recipes for their chosen vegetable and odds are you’ll have them eating a variety of vegetables at the end of the month.

4. Add Color to their Plates 

Children enjoy colorful meals. Yes, that is why processed foods’ manufacturers add all those artificial colorings into kids’ snacks. You can beat them and still give your kids a colorful meal by reaching for some vibrant vegetables. Green, red and yellow peppers can be sliced finely and tossed in mayo dressing with some raisins and nuts for a yummy and healthy salad. Use cookie cutters to shape grated carrots, blanched spinach and sautéed snowy white cauliflower into a fun plate filled with health and yumminess.

5. Read About Healthy Eating and Vegetables


Make eating vegetables a fun and interesting experience by reading up about them and swapping fun facts at the dinner table. Books and websites offer tons of information for various age groups. Spend some time every evening reading up together about the veggie you would be eating.  Websites, like, Nourish Interactive and books, like Nutrition Fun with Brocc and Roll by Connie Liakos Evers are great starting points for reading up about vegetables and healthy eating.

How do YOU make eating vegetables fun and interesting for your kids? 

Photo Credit: Abigail Batchelder

10 Interesting and Fun Facts About the History of Soap

Want to know more about the soap that you use to wash your hands clean? Here are 10 fun facts about the humble “cleaning bar”.

1. The earliest users of soaps were the Celts who referred to it as “saipo”. Not much of a difference in its name, huh?!

2. The first soaps were made by boiling oil from the olive plant or tallow {animal fat} with lye water leached from ashes of wood fire to dryness.

3.       Early soaps were mainly used for cleaning clothes and not so much on the bodies.

4.       The first civilization to use soap on the bodies were the Romans who, then, spread the soapmaking and using skills all through Europe.

5.       Soap making was concentrated around Marseilles and later spread to Genoa and Venice.

6.       Around the 13^th and 14^th centuries, soap was considered a revenue source by the British government and it was taxed.

7.       The manufacturing of good quality soap started only around the 18^th century when it was discovered how to make large quantities of caustic soda.

8.       Pears Soap dates back to 1789 and by 1700, there were over 63 soap companies in London.

9.       By 1890, there were many types of soaps available and the 5 big soap companies included Colgate, Albert, Morse Taylor, Pears and Bailey.

10.   According to a 2009 survey conducted by Soap magazine(yes, there is a  magazine named Soap), the world production of soap is around 10,000,000,000 Ib. per year (of which the U. S. makes and uses about one-third).

Keen to know more about soaps? Check out  this post that offers trivia about soaps andsoapmaking  including why Palmolive is called Palmolive!

Want to know what makes Wett Giggles soaps super fun and sudsy too? A careful process of making each bar by hand, with natural glycerin, essential oils and shea butter that makes them perfect for children’s sensitive skin.

With scents as appealing as blackberry, coconut banana, watermelon and more, these fun, natural soaps come with a nail brush and are super-affordable at just $10 a piece.

Plus, this month, we’re offering 20% discount on all orders and a flat $4.99 shipping rate as well, so go ahead and get yourself a fu, animal or planet soap that cleans and entertains as well!

Don’t forget to sign up for the Wett Giggles Newsletter to get more special offers and fun tips and ideas.

4 Fun Simple, Surefire Ways to Encourage Hygiene in Kids

Keeping children healthy involves ensuring that they follow good hygiene habits. Yes, you know. Washing their hands. Sneezing in their elbows.  Blowing their noses in tissues. Yes, good, ole’ basic hygiene.

Keeping good hygiene ensures that infections don’t get passed around as much and last for shorter durations as well. So, how does a parent ensure that kids develop good hygiene. By telling them, for sure. But we all know how effective that is. Instead, if you make learning about health and hygiene fun and interesting, they would be more inclined to remember what you “tell” them.

So, here are some fun and yet effective ways to encourage good hygiene in your child:

1. Make Hygiene Habits Fun


Begin by creating an element of fun. Our fun animal and planet soaps make it super-easy to do that. Kids enjoy washing their hands with a cute li’l cow or sweet li’l frog that smell as good as they look. Bring these in and they’ll never complain about having to wash their hands..again.

2. Add Toys and Games

Does your child run a mile at the thought of a bath? Throw in some toys or make it a game of bathing the doll or washing the truck and sit back and watch them have fun splashing about and having a blast getting rid of all the dirt and grime.

3. Bring in Song and Dance

Is brushing teeth a dreaded chore? Liven it up with fun songs or even, a dance.  Just take any nursery rhyme such as “A, B, C” and add your own words for brushing. Kids Soup, for instance, has some fun songs to help make brushing teeth really fun and interesting.

Let your little ones swing and sway while you sing in the background and before you know it, teeth brushing would be something they’ll looking forward to.

4. Read about Hygiene

Finally, end the boo-boo around hygiene with books. Brush, Brush, Brush by Alicia Padron  and  Germs are Not for Sharing by Elizabeth Verdick  are just some books that you can check out when adding to your child’s library.

Hygiene is essential but it doesn’t have to be boring and tiresome. Adding simple elements of fun can ensure that kids not only remember what you teach them but they do it happily, making life as a parent so much easier.

So, how do you make learning about hygiene fun for your kids?