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Vegetables are healthy, eat-all-you-want, low calorie, big-variety foods! There are hundreds of kinds of vitamin rich, high fiber vegetables and an amazing number of ways to fix them. Let's look at some tip and tricks for increasing the intake of vegetables in your household.

1. Straight out of the can is probably not the best way to encourage vegetable consumption.

Consider some of the other ways vegetables can be served.
- In casseroles
- In soups
- In salads
- Raw, with dip
- As juice
- On sandwiches
- Battered and deep fried
- With sauces
- As souffls
- In desserts

2. Serve the vegetable choices that your family likes frequently. You may get tired of serving corn on the cob, peas, and carrots, but if those are the vegetables that they like the best make sure to serve at least one of them every day. Meanwhile, don't give up on finding new recipes that may become favorites.

3. Get over your own limitations. Have you ever tried eggplant, parsnips, artichokes, or okra. If you have, see if you can find tasty ways to serve them to your family, and find five or six vegetables that you haven't ever tried to work on next. If you haven't tried them, experiment with several recipes before you spring them on your family.

4. Add more vegetables to dishes you frequently serve. Shred cabbage, carrots, zucchini, and onions into your spaghetti sauce. They will never notice once it has cooked down and blended in. Put corn in the chili and shred carrots into the taco meat. Sneak some extra vegetables into casseroles. Shred them, dice them, or saute them before you mix them in. Don't miss any opportunity to add a vegetable to any recipe you can.

5. Add a sauce. Try cheese sauce, butter sauce, garlic sauce, sweet and sour sauce, barbecue sauce, ranch dressing, mayonnaise, catchup, mushroom soup, gravy, spaghetti sauce, or what ever they like. Sometimes it only takes a tablespoon full to change from drab to delicious.

6. If you have children in the household, try a game with a great prize. Can your kids find and eat 1/2 cup of 30 different vegetables in 30 days? You will have to take them vegetable hunting, or make a trip to the farmers market. Finding the recipes will be your project. Enlist the help of the whole family to make the project a success. A reward such as a trip to the nearest theme park, or a new bicycle may be worth it to get your kids involved with vegetables for 30 days.

7. Begin a family garden. Start small with two or three vegetables that require minimal care. Cucumbers sandwiches, corn on the cob, and carrot salad all taste better fresh from the garden. Grow sprouts in the window sill for sandwiches and salads. Experiment with setting up one hydroponic tomato plant with an automated pump. You'll be amazed at what a great crop you can produce from a single plant.

8. Don't forget the desserts. A wonderful little recipe book called "Vegetable Desserts: Beyond Carrot Cake and Pumpkin Pie" by Elisabeth Schafer and Jeannette L. Miller. An online search for "vegetable dessert" will also net several good recipes.

With these tips in mind, we hope you will be able to increase your enjoyment of vegetables, and your families vegetable consumption. Maybe you can even turn some of your vegetable haters into vegetable eaters! Keep on trying... I'll bet you'll have success!

Learn more about this author, Susan Kliebenstein.
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