Getting kids to eat their vegetables

Tears. Screaming. Tantrums. And that's just the first course.

Sometimes it seems like enduring torture while watching "The Wiggles" on repeat for 17 hours straight would be more enjoyable than trying to get children to eat their vegetables.

But as I've become more tenured in this job that's called motherhood, I've learned a few techniques — maybe tricks — that help my children eat more nutritiously.

Give food nicknames

What's in a name? A lot, according to Brian Wansink, author of "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think" (Bantam, 2006). In an effort to prove that a tomato by another name would not be as gross, I renamed the classic vegetable soup after the red planet.

Mars Soup now reigns with grilled cheese sandwiches at our house. I also had to make up an elaborate explanation about how Mars rocks were collected, processed and redistributed as soup.

If you have qualms about the tooth fairy and other misleadings of children, then maybe this one's not for you.

But does it work? Any mother who has marketed eating broccoli to her children by encouraging them to eat their "tiny trees like a big brontosaurus" knows it does.

Trick eyes, fool stomachs

Serve regular-size portions of vegetables on large dishes. This tip also comes from Wansink, who has a doctorate from Stanford and works at Cornell University, where he directs the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.

The proportional difference between the plate and the food makes it seem like there aren't many vegetables to eat.

As a tangent, this also works in reverse for parents who are trying to eat less.

Use smaller plates and your brain will register your meal as larger because it fills up the plate and is thus more filling.

One bite, lots of times

Dr. Alan Green, a physician whose Whiteout movement is pushing the nutritional beginnings of America's children away from white, processed starches toward more healthful whole grains, recently posted the following on his website, www.drgreene.com.

"The best way to get your infant to eat any new food is to desensitize him or her to the taste. You can accomplish this by using the new food for the first bite of solids each day for 10 days straight."