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Health authorities advise that a healthy balanced diet should include at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Trying to ensure that everyone in the family eats their greens can be exhausting especially when you have a toddler who refuses to eat vegetables. There are many things that you can do to alleviate the problem and persuade your toddler that vegetables are good to eat and really will not poison him or her.

The first thing to remember is that toddlers' taste buds are very sensitive and they do not experience flavors in the same way that adults do. Taste buds change as children grow, think back, it is a racing certainty that there are some foods that you would not eat as a child but that you eat with relish now, and other foods that you loved as a child that you hate now. It may be that some vegetable flavors are too strong for your little one.

A mother was complaining on a television programme recently that her three year old would not eat aubergine (eggplant). Aubergine (eggplant) has a strong flavor disliked by many adults, rather an acquired taste, so to expect a toddler to like it is rather daft.

It is no use trying to force feed vegetables to little Johnny if you and his father think vegetables are the invention of the devil. A good household rule is that everyone, including grown ups must have a dessertspoonful of every vegetable. Do not overload a toddler's plate tiny portions are not as frightening as a great pile of greens and s/he can always ask for more.

The reason for a toddler's dislike of vegetables may have nothing to do with the flavor of the vegetable. It may be that s/he just does not like the texture of the vegetable. If your child refuses to eat cooked vegetables try them raw, cut a selection of raw vegetables into handy finger sized pieces and perhaps give them to him/her with a dip or just on their own. Very few children enjoy lettuce or cucumber, and that is to do with both texture and flavor. If you want to introduce children to salads, try making your own coleslaw at home.

Leave the disputed vegetables off for a while and concentrate on ones they do like, most children prefer the sweeter vegetables such as carrots or sweet corn. Then reintroduce other vegetables slowly over a period.

Make vegetables fun: call vegetables funny names e.g. broccoli could be trees. You could liquidize the vegetables and call them green sauce. Hide vegetables: most children like pizza, and will eat vegetables on a pizza, or roll them up in a pancake and cover them with tomato or cheese sauce. Mash cauliflower into mashed potato with cheese.

Make vegetables friendly: There are many books for children about vegetables, from storybooks to books about growing and cooking vegetables. Obtain a safe peeler and let your little one help to prepare the vegetables in the kitchen. Grow some vegetables with your toddler; even the most determined veggie hater will want to taste something that he has helped to grow.

Start children young but introduce vegetables slowly to babies. Some people make the mistake of trying to give babies too many flavors too quickly. Allow baby to get used to one flavor before introducing another.

Not all toddlers dislike vegetables some cannot get enough of them. There are very good reasons why some toddlers do not like some vegetables. Understanding those reasons is halfway to solving the problem. The important thing is not to panic and never to make food a battleground.

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