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Everyone wants to eat healthy but it doesn't always happen in the real world. To begin with, not everyone (kids as well as adults) like all foods. They turn up their noses at certain vegetables and rush to the junk food counters to fill up with unhealthy meals. These people come under the heading of picky eaters'. But for those designated as picky eaters' it is still important for them to get in their proper nutrition.

Often it is necessary to fool this group of people into eating healthy foods and sneak in the nutritious elements so that they do not recognize the ingredient they feel they don't like. Nutritious foods can be added as secondary ingredients to many dishes so that the food in question is not apparent to the eater.

One way to add healthy ingredients to foods is through desserts. There are many desserts you can make that can mask the inclusion of healthy vegetables. Kids and adults alike will often eat cookies containing vegetables and they don't even notice the vegetables inside. You can make delicious oatmeal cookies containing shredded carrots or zucchini (the carrots and zucchini help to make the cookies moist) that kids and adults will gobble up. Or perhaps a squash pie (in lieu of pumpkin) or carrot cake. The sweetness of the desserts always overcomes the dislike of certain ingredients.

You can also use soups to mask healthy vegetables in a dish. Someone may not love eating raw or cooked broccoli as a side dish, but broccoli turns into something heavenly when made into a cream soup. You can get in a whole slew of different vegetables in a cream of vegetable soup when all the healthy ingredients are pureed together. Even tiny diced vegetables in a hearty, beefy vegetable soup often get overlooked by picky eaters.

Sometimes you can make other substitutions in dishes that will add nutrition that picky eaters may not mind. One example may be using sauted bean sprouts topped with spaghetti sauce in lieu of using spaghetti noodles. The cooked bean sprouts are healthy and delicious and offer a nice bit of crunch and texture to any otherwise ho-hum spaghetti dish.

Another way to add nutritious ingredients into a picky eater's diet is through drinks and smoothies. Instead of your typical calorie-rich ice cream milkshake, why not add tofu to give the milkshake thicknessand add fresh ripe fruit for the sweetener. Smoothies made with fruit are always healthy choices, but why not add a bit of carrots before you blend it to it to make it even healthier. You may even want to add peas to a honey-dew melon smoothie (the green color will be masked by the melon's color).

The above are only a few ways that you can add nutrition to a picky eaters diet. There are many other options that are only limited by your imagination. Let your imagination run free and cater to your finicky eaters' tastes. And even if they don't notice, you can feel better about their new healthier eating habits.

Learn more about this author, Denny Phillips.
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