My two daughters could not be more different when it comes to food. Kat, my 9 year old, is pretty picky, despite our attempts to expand the menu. For YEARS she would not eat ANYTHING that was green. Even if it was candy!

This child LOVES catsup. She would quite literally eat it with a spoon from a bowl like soup if we let her. When she was about 5 or 6, you could get those colored catsups. We were at a friends house for a BBQ, and Kat was having a hot dog, and of course wanted catsup on it. When they put that hotdog in front of her with GREEN catsup on it, she about died. She didn't throw an all out temper tantrum, but she did start crying. Quietly at first, so no one noticed until her best friend Maggie said loudly, "Kat, what's WRONG?!?" With that, the water works over flowed.

"There is GREEN SLIME ON MY HOTDOG!!!!" Still not throwing an actual temper tantrum, poor Kat was totally distraught. Since I hadn't made up her plate for her, she got the green stuff. No one else really knew about her passionate distaste for anything green.

Thankfully, she is finally starting to eat green things. This is one of those times where getting her to eat ANYTHING green, even candy or cookies, is a step in the right direction. She likes chicken in any form, hamburgers, meat in spaghetti, and anything smothered with cheese. But even non-green veggies are not on the list of things she will eat right out of the gate.

Brianna, my 6 year old, is a born vegetarian. As soon as she was old enough to eat fruit, it was always her first choice. But really, she has been a hearty eater all along. As an infant eating baby food, she would eat THREE 6 ounce jars of food at EACH meal. One "main dish," one veggie, and one fruit. And she'd eat every last bit youcould scrape out of those jars. And no, she has never been overweight. Ever. Once the solid food came into play, she prefered fruits and veggies over ANYthing else. She can pack it away like no one you have ever seen before. But getting her to any sort of meat is like pulling teeth.

So how do I get them both to eat the same meal? I'm sneaky, that's how! We spoke with a nurtionist sometime last year and she had some great ideas. So far, the best vehicle to hide other foods in is spaghetti. At least for us. When I add meat, I make sure it is super small so it can't be picked out. The nutrionist said that if you cook the fresh veggies IN the sauce, you aren't really losing much, if any, if the nutritional value because it just goes into the sauce. So we grate up carrots, zuccini, and just about any other hard vegetable you can think of. I have even chopped the tops off of broccoli so that all the tiny little buds are spread througout the sauce, then grated up the stems.

Kat still complaines a bit because she knows the veggies are there, even though I seriously doubt she would if she didn't see me grating them up and putting them in the red sauce, and Brianna knows the meat is there because I can't totally hide it. But I know that however little they may eat of the sauce, they are getting more veggies that if I didn't hide it in the sauce. And slowly but surely, I am adding more sauce each time they have it. And with all the meat and veggies, the sauce is more like chili than spaghetti sauce. I think I may try to add some sort of bean to the sauce the nex time I make it so I can work my way to getting them to eat actual chili!

I realize that there are a ton of other hubs/blogs/articles out there saying NOT to do this because it takes away a kids choice. They still get choices. In fact, when we have the spaghetti, it's usually because they asked. When they aren't asking for spaghetti, they are asking for PB&J which they get once in a while. I frequently ask the kids what they want for dinner, and more often than not, since it tends to be just me and the kids for dinner, we have what THEY want. And yes, I'd still put the grated veggies in my sauces even if they weren't eating dinner with me because I don't eat enough veggies either!