Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 23:37     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
Anonymous wrote:ok this thread is depressing. How do you guys have kids who eat all of these? My son just hates veggies and anything new. He only eats carrots and sometimes a tiny bite of broccoli after much negociation, but he hates eat.


Just keep offering. For a long time I would sit the kids down for dinner but "accidentally" only the veggies were ready, the rest of the food just had to cook a little longer... Some kids like to dip veggies in things like ranch dip or ketchup or even maple syrup. Let them try crazy combinations if they want to. Hang in there. It gets better. Just keep offering!
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 23:35     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
This is interesting. I get a vegetable box and a fruit box each week. They have a lot but I am not sure we get to 25 different things, even with the trips I still do to the store for random things. Tonight we a salad with edible flowers on it. I think they were radish flowers.

What a great exercise! I am going to try to get to 25 next week!
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 22:56     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
ok this thread is depressing. How do you guys have kids who eat all of these? My son just hates veggies and anything new. He only eats carrots and sometimes a tiny bite of broccoli after much negociation, but he hates eat.
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 22:49     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
In a given week they pretty much always eat:
Peas
Broccoli or cauliflower
Cucumber
Green beans or tomatoes with hummus
Sweet potatoes or carrots
Spinach or kale or arugula
Some kind of onions
Some kind of mushroom
Some kind of olive or pickled something or other
Carrots or peppers

Apples
Bananas
Kiwi or pear or peach
Some kind of berry
Oranges or citrus fruit
Dates
Pineapple or melon
Mango or grapes
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 22:35     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
I doubt we get that much variety (25) ...let’s see, per week:

6yo -
Broccoli
Cucumber
Sweet potato
Zucchini
Green peas
Green beans
Cantaloupe
Carrot
Apples
Kiwi
Oranges
Watermelon
Grapes
Strawberries
Pineapple
Banana

So that’s 16

4yo-
Same as above minus broccoli, add beets
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 21:43     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
In the past week I guess:

lettuce
cucumber
bell pepper
carrot
olive
radish
snap pea
peas
corn
potato
onion
cilantro
soup with lots of veggies but unclear which
probably frozen broccoli

clementine
raspberry
blackberry
cantaloupe
red grapes
apple
peach (in smoothie)
lime juice

10 yo which is somewhat more of a challenge than when he was 3.
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 21:37     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
Fruits, yes. Vegetables, no. The rotation includes:

apples, oranges, pears, kiwi
variety of berries
grapes
watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple
bananas, avocado
broccoli, cucumbers
lettuce, tomato, peppers (only one of my kids)
sweet potato and squash (only one of my kids)
potatoes only in the form of french fries
carrots, occasionally peas, corn on the cob
spinach if I can hide it in another dish

Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 20:59     Subject: Re:How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
Is this post for real? How do people afford so many fresh fruits and vegetables? I feel good if I can buy 3 types of fruit each week and enough vegetables to make a few salads.
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 20:09     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
Apple
Orange
Banana
Strawberries
Blackberries
Honeydew
Kiwi

Baby carrots
Cucumber
Bell pepper
Spinach
Peas
Corn
Onion
Celery
Garlic
Tomato
Asparagus
Cilantro

We usually eat cucumber, carrots, peppers, tomato, celery spinach raw with lunch (one or two) and the rest usually cooked. Frequently I cook celery, tomato and spinach as well.

Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 19:57     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
every week we are pretty much the same

zuchinni
bell peppers
green peppers
cucumber
tomatoes
mushrooms
bok choy
spinach
green beans
celery
carrots
peas
corn
cauliflower

strawberries
blueberries
peaches
blackberries
mango
papaya
raspberries
kiwi
green apples and red apples
pears
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 19:49     Subject: Re:How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
This week:

apples
oranges
strawberries
kiwi
blueberries (in smoothie)
banana (smoothie)
avocado
garlic
ginger
scallion
broccoli
spinach
cucumber
carrots
tomato
celery

That's a pretty average week for us in terms of number although we buy different fruits and veg each week. I do think buying more variety leads to more overall consumption for me.
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 18:58     Subject: Re:How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
MAybe 2 each week but I have a teenager. It wasn’t much different when he was younger. Apples and either oranges or bananas. Sometimes I splurge on strawberries.
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 17:37     Subject: Re:How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
Broccoli, peas, sweet potatoes every week, plus 1-2 more vegetables (asparagus and corn maybe).

Apples, bananas, grapefruit, clementines, strawberries or blueberries most weeks, plus 1-2 more fruits some weeks (pineapple and another berry maybe).

So probably 10-12 in an average week. My son a couple less because he is pickier.

I can do 15-20 more easily because I like salads and there is a salad bar at work with lots of options.
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 17:06     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
My 4yo is pretty picky about veggies, so we eat a lot of the same ones. In a week we usually have peas, corn, carrots, cucumber, zucchini, and either broccoli or cauliflower. His older sister eats almost everything, so add another 2 or 3 for her.

Fruit, we pretty much always have apples, pears, and bananas. The rest is more seasonal. This week we had cantaloupe and mangos.

So that’s 11-15 for us for the week.
Anonymous
Post 04/11/2019 16:55     Subject: How many *different* fruits and vegetables does your kid eat per week?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I don’t think that is a realistic recommendation. If you had a garden/farm, you wouldn’t have 25 diff fruits/vegetables ready to harvest within a given week.


Well, yeah, it would actually be MORE unrealistic if you had a farm (only certain things are in season in a given climate), but if you had a farm, you'd be getting more exercise and there would be a bunch of other health benefits (or could be). If you have access to grocery stores and occasional restaurants, it's more realistic. I'm not sure why anyone is taking this as some sort of prescription from on high, by the way-- her recommendation generally is to have a varied diet-- the game she proposed to me was d/t my specific health concerns.


Well it just seems like a very random/arbitrary recommendation that’s not based on anything.... And yes your original post makes it sound like a “prescription from on high” because this is how your mom, an MD, is telling you how to address a health problem, and now you’ve got a whole thread of people measuring their child’s diet based on this silly guideline your mom came up with.


Seriously? The general recommendation to eat a variety 1) was not created by her and 2) is based on quite a lot of research. The "silly" number 25 was something concrete for ME to shoot for, which is explicit in the OP. And if people are reading this and getting anxious or feeling inadequate, that's on them, not me. It's just food ( ) for thought and less prescriptive than even "Strive for Five." Maybe it's because my mom is a doctor, and I know how many crappy ones there are, but I would absolutely never take the thoughts of one doctor as Gospel. But you do you.


There’s a difference between “variety” and 25/week. As I and another poster have said, nature rarely/never provides 25 different varieties of produce in one location at one time, so how can this recommendation possibly be relevant? You sound like you are taking your mom’s recommendation seriously when you really shouldn’t be.