Parents who want their kids to consume fewer calories and eat more vegetables might find a healthy solution with stealth vegetables.
A Penn State study shows that decreasing the calorie density of foods by adding vegetables and other lower-calorie ingredients leads to a reduction in children's calorie intake and an increase in vegetable consumption.
"To combat the epidemic of childhood obesity, the World Health Organization recommends reducing children's consumption of calorie-dense foods. Many children are not eating enough foods that are low in calorie density, such as fruits and vegetables," said Dr. Barbara Rolls, who holds the Helen A. Guthrie chair of nutritional sciences at Penn State's College of Health and Human Development. "Parents often find it difficult to get their kids to eat vegetables."
The researchers developed two variations of pasta, and served the dishes to 61 children between 3-5 years of age on different occasions. One dish had a higher calorie density (1.6 kilocalories per gram), while the second dish was 25 percent lower in calorie density (1.2 kilocalories per gram) and had a larger amount of vegetables.
"We blended broccoli and cauliflower and incorporated it into the pasta sauce," said Kathleen E. Leahy, doctoral candidate and lead author of the study. "The kids could not really tell the difference and ate a consistent weight of pasta."