The Annapolis cluster had the privilege of having Tammy Turner from Annapolis Pediatrics educate my au pairs on how to get picky eaters to eat their fruits and veggies.  Tammy suggested eating a “rainbow” every day and keeping track of the colors  each day as a way of  making eating healthy fun and exciting.  For example, Mondays could be blue and purple and another day could be yellow and orange.  Choosing a variety of veggies such as squash, sugar snap peas and yellow grape tomatoes adds color to their plate.  Picking fruits that look interesting like kiwi or mangoes teaches children that there are many different kinds of fruits to choose from.  So while they may not like a certain fruit they may really enjoy something else.  It’s all about exposing your children to different foods to get them to try something new.  Suggestions were provided on snacks you can make days in advance in less than 5 minutes!  The au pairs were invited to try veggies alone or dipped in roasted pepper hummus or fruit paired with Greek Vanilla yogurt.  A great website to give au pairs other suggestions may be found at ChooseMyPlate.gov.  Another great tip was to download the free app called Fooducate on your smart phone.  This app allows you to scan the bar code of any given food and the app then provides you with a grade and color to see if this is as healthy as you think.  This is a wonderful tool to use with children to get them excited about what they are eating and a  fun way to get kids involved in  eating healthy.