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My Kids Love Raw Vegetables

By: Dorrie Ruplinger I am not making this up. My children really do love raw vegetables. Even now that they are grown up and either at college or living on their own, one of the first things they do when coming home is open the refrigerator while asking at the same time if there are any veggies and dip. The dip is the key. That is how I got my kids hooked on eating raw vegetables and eating a lot of them. It is not unusual for my three children to eat two heads of cauliflower, and a two pound bag of baby carrots in one day when they are home and still be looking for more raw vegetables to eat.

When planning holiday meals, my kids make sure I have a veggie tray planned. And unlike many families where the veggie tray is ignored ours is dug into with gusto; even at my annual New Year's Day party with about 35 to 40 family and friends in attendance. For that party I no longer bother with a platter of raw vegetables. I put out giant bowls of them and leave them out after the meal is over for the kids and adults to snack on. By the time everyone goes home, the last stalk of celery has been eaten. My typical raw vegetable purchase for my New Year's Day party is 3 heads of cauliflower, 4 pounds of baby carrots, 2 bunches of celery, 1 bag of radishes, 4 green bell peppers, 4 red bell peppers, and 3 containers of grape tomatoes. No, I never have leftovers; and yes I have lots of other food.

What's the secret? It's dip. My kids have always been willing to eat tons of raw vegetables as long as they have dip to go with them. It seems like kids are willing to eat healthy foods as long as they can dip them in something.

Although I can't say my dip recipe is healthy, it's really flavorful so a little of it goes a long way. And because my kids ate so many raw vegetables with it I never worried about the amount of dip they were using. This is the dip recipe I was given over 25 years ago and have been making at least once a week since then. It make two cups, but a double batch of it is more than enough for all the vegetables I serve at my New Year's Day party.

Vegetable Dip
1 cup sour cream
1 cup Hellmann's Mayo (don't substitute)
1 generous tablespoon dill weed
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
¾ teaspoon onion salt
¾ teaspoon garlic salt
¾ teaspoon Lawry's seasoning salt

Mix everything together, chill, and serve; although we typically don't bother chilling it before eating it the first time. We mix it up and dig in with our vegetables. The dip keeps well, about two weeks if it lasts that long.

My kids can't remember a time that fresh vegetables weren't available to them. I tried to make a point of always keeping some cut up and ready to eat in the refrigerator. I also taught all my children how to make the dip when they were little. All three of my now grown children can make the dip without using the recipe. Also, as soon as they were old enough, I had them help me with the cutting and washing of the vegetables. And most importantly, I set a good example. At night when it was snack time, my kids usually saw me snacking on raw veggies and dip. It just became a natural thing for them to do too. Now the biggest obstacle my kids tell me they have is finding time to cut up vegetables for themselves. They buy the vegetables but don't seem to get around to cutting them up. They say once they do get them cut up, they eat them quickly, but they admit they were pretty spoiled by me making a point of keeping those fresh ready to eat vegetables in the fridge all the time when they were younger.