How to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables

One of the hard things to deal with is a kid who won't eat good food, formally known as vegetables. Many adults won't eat them either (like Pres. George H.W. Bush who hates broccoli. Do you remember his dust-up with the Broccoli Association? Apparently US presidents are supposed to suck it up and eat their vegetables, no matter what. ) The problem with vegetables is they don't have a good advertising campaign. Kool-aid has the Kool-aid man, Tang used to be "the drink of Astronauts!" and who doesn't love Tony the Tiger and his Frosted Flake cereal? Who is standing up for the lowly Brussels Sprout? Not a soul.

The only vegetable in America that had widespread success in being eaten by children during the 1960's and 70's was spinach. Of course, it wasn't just any old spinach. No one ate it raw on salads back then besides my hippie next door neighbors who were vegetarians. I loved hanging out with the free-range hippie kids, but I rarely stuck around at meal times. I preferred hamburgers to plates of beets, celery and dandelion roots.

I happily ate spinach (only from a can, the way God intended it) because I was an avid watcher of the world's most subversive cartoon ad campaign for that veggie. Popeye the Sailor man ate spinach to give him extra strength before fighting his evil nemesis, Brutus. What scrawny kid looking to protect themselves from older kids, wouldn't investigate the wonders of canned spinach after watching Popeye pop open a can of it, gulp it down and then stop a moving train with his bare hands? I was sold.

Genius. Sheer genius.

I maintain Popeye the Sailor Man still holds up well today as a ringing endorsement of eating your spinach. You can find Popeye spinach (it comes frozen, too)  if you look for it. I have a can in my kitchen cupboard right now. Show your kids the cartoon and let Popeye do his job. He's good at it.

 As Mikey for Life cereal would say, "Try it! You'll like it!" Meanwhile, enjoy the Popeye cartoon  episode, Spinach vs. Hamburgers on me. For the record, just like the children in the cartoon,  I eat both. I am sucker for good advertising