Health gem

If you do one thing this week . . . offer water to drink with vegetables

IF YOU want kids to tuck into their veggies, a new study suggests you might want to look at what they are drinking.

The research, at the University of Oregon, looked at children’s acceptance of raw vegetables as a snack when paired with either a sweetened drink or with plain water.

Parents of 40 boys and 35 girls aged between three and five completed a survey, and the children took part in taste-test trials in which they were offered carrot sticks and red peppers with either water or a sweet drink. The children ate more vegetables if the drink on offer was water.

“Even after consuming only a small amount of the sweetened drink, children were relatively disinterested in eating vegetables,” the authors write in the journal Appetite.

“Our simple recommendation is to serve water with all meals,” says researcher Bettina Cornwell, a professor of marketing.