How to feed salad?

[MommyMoulton]

Does anyone out there feed their young toddler salad? I had an amazing ceaser salad today and now that summer is getting closer I love to eat more salads, but how do I feed it to my 21month old? Does it even have any nutritional value to him?
MM

[flutie]

Hey Melissa,
We give Kian salad most meals.  We just give him a small portion of ours with the veggies cut into sticks.  We put lots of yummy stuff besides veggies in like cheese, avacado, fruit....he ikes picking through them.

[creations]

My DS has only just started to accept bits of salad, over 2yo.  Before the recent increase it would just be tomatoes he would eat, and occasionally some grated carrot.  Now he will eat chopped raw spring onion, sticks of raw sweet pepper and carrot, celery, raw mange tout but it's still a limited 'salad'.  He has once or twice tried a leaf but mostly he looks at me like, 'that's not food that's a plant'.

[becj86]

DS has eaten raw carrots, cucumber, tomato, avocado, beetroot (a big favourite), capsicum and probably a few others since at least 12 months of age - a lot before then. He will taste lettuce but its not particularly nutrient rich and he doesn't swallow it yet. He happily chooses most of those items out of the fridge vege drawer if that's what he feels like when he's hungry. I usually put ham, chicken or egg in with a salad for the protein component and offer a little sandwich or some plain cooked pasta/rice with it for carbs.

[gogomama]

Agree with the others. Most of the time DD just likes to pick through the pieces herself and take what she likes. She likes to take the lettuce leaves and suck on them for a while before spitting them out....which makes for a big mess. Both my kids have a thing for raw onions though so that seems to be what I have to put on the salad for them to eat it

[anna*]

Agree with all the pps. If our main dish is some kind of salad, they will eat all the 'good bits' (hunks of chicken, apple, grapes, whatever) out of it. If we have salad as a side I put a little on their plates - they will generally eat the tomato, cucumber, grated carrot, beets etc. Audrey can't really manage any leaves as she hasn't got her two year molars yet and they need quite a bit of chewing. Stan will eat a couple of raw spinach or lamb's lettuce leaves, but even so I think it's good to get in the habit of seeing fresh/raw veggies on their plate every day!

[Lemonthyme]

Flat refusal.  Cucumber maybe, raw carrot, perhaps.  Leaves.  Just no.  I keep trying though.

[creations]

raw red onion was a huge hit today.

[Lemonthyme]

raw red onion was a huge hit today.

Blimey!  Really?  And I thought I had an adventurous sort!

[creations]

I know!  He tasted a rocket leaf recently too (totally conned into that by the name!), it was really peppery rocket too, he didn't yuck at it but didn't eat it, I think it was the fact it's a leaf that put him off rather than the peppery hit.  Leaves are an odd texture to get used to. 

[cuckoochick]

Charlotte does tend to eat the other components but she does like homemade dressings and will dip lambs lettuce, rocket, baby spinach leaves etc into it and eat them that way!!!

I am so looking forward to more salads but we do tend to have salad type veggies most day on offer for C, eg at lunchtime with sandwiches etc.

[Lemonthyme]

It's a good point though, maybe with some good, crisp little gem and a ceaser dressing he might give it a go (cheese persuades him most of the time!)

[MamaLiz]

My dd1 will eat salad when everything is cut up pretty small and uniform, incl lettuce, and dressed. She eats it with a spoon (so hers is a really chopped salad) and usually will or won't rather than picking through. She likes the same dressings as dips for fresh veggies, and something about dipping I suspect, makes the veggies (even the same ones) a more popular choice with her.

[mimi1017]

Following along because my girls will eat tomatoes, avocado, etc...but I would like them to eat the spinach....any yummy toddler type of dressings that have worked for you ladies?

[creations]

DS is now regularly eating rocket and romaine lettuce, it's just happened over the last couple of weeks.

I don't make any particular dressing, it's always different.