Children are born with a preference for sweet foods because of their association with energy. Meanwhile, one of the reasons why children, and sometimes adults, hate vegetables could be due to the bitterness of the greens. People often give the excuses to prevent themselves from eating vegetables such as 'they do not taste good' or 'they do not look attractive'.
How if we 'doll-up' your healthy meal? Will that make you want to consume the greens?
If you have a sweet tooth like us, and you see a simple vanilla cupcake
and another cupcake piped with frosting with the butter-cream frosting that that had its enriching scent wavering into your nostrils and was topped with sprinkles of a thousand shades of colours,
which would you prefer to savour more?
Well, definitely the cupcake that's garnished, right? Let's look into why this is so.
Plating is as important as how the food tastes. Presentation is the process of offering the selected foods to guests in a fashionable way that is visually pleasing. Most of the time, we're happy just to get the food on the table and any points for presentation are just bonuses. Yet, we know that how food is presented definitely has an effect on how we perceive and enjoy it. Just imagine the difference between a pile of meat on a platter verses sliced meat carefully arranged over oven-roasted vegetables. Even the most humble home-cooked meal can feel fancy if it's arranged and presented nicely. Well, as the saying goes, "the eye eats first". As mentioned, the creativity and skill that goes into cooking or baking has to be placed on the plate, and skill, experience and most importantly, style needs to be incorporated. In a nutshell, the fancier the dish looks, the more the consumer would want to dive right into it!
This is no different from vegetables. Vegetables can be presented in many different ways and even forms.
Let's have Fun with Fruits & Vegetables!
Take a look at the above collage. As you can see, the salad in the first column is so plain and boring. But look at what you can turn it into! Also incorporating healthy food, you can create a completely different looking but equally nutritious bite-sized snack!
Take a look at the second column. A simple leaf of lettuce with a cherry tomato and an egg all held together with a toothpick and placed on a classy white platter. How much of a difference it actually makes as compared to leaves thrown into a bowl! This idea is cute and you can even put this on the table during a party.
How about the dish in the third column? This idea is appealing, especially to kids! With wholewheat bread being the body, lettuce being the hair, cheese being the nose, seaweed being the pupils, eggs being the eyes and cherry tomatoes being the jewellery, a nutritious yet creative dish has been displayed on the table!
Look at this collage of fruits. In the top-left grid, a plain bowl and chopped fruits thrown into it is shown. How boring! How about rearranging them?Check out the grid on the top-right. Are you one of those people who dump the watermelon shells away? If you are, then stop! You can easily cut the shell into adorable shapes and then hold your fruits or even salad in it! Such an adorable idea and is amazing to display at a party where your friends can pick out their healthy bites!Just by rearranging the fruits, it looks so much more presentable and neat, as you can see from the grid on the bottom-left. This makes it so much easier to look for your desired fruit without shoving and pushing the other fruits away. Neat and hygienic!Also, storing your fruits in a cup makes it look more classy and presentable, as shown in the bottom-right grid.
Finally, let us take a look at this collage. This is what I mean by 'food can be presented in different forms'. Hmm... Instead of eating strawberries, let's have a change. How about drinking strawberries! Simply throw strawberries in the blender, turn on the switch and you got it, strawberry juice! Now, just pour the juice in a classy glass and I bet you'll be drifted off into the beautiful land of fresh red strawberries, because I did!You can also serve your fruits in the form of a tart. Grab a tart base from the grocery store or you can make your own tart base from scratch. Just ensure that you replace the flour with wholewheat flour to make it healthy. Once you've gotten your tart base, place your fruits on the tart and there you have it, a bite-sized snack that's great for a party or just to eat during tea-break!Mmm... Did someone say 'heart-shaped watermelons'? Using a cookie cutter, cut out slices of watermelon and display them on a fanciful platter to serve. Exquisite!Chocolate! I love chocolate. But isn't chocolate unhealthy? Don't they contain a high level of sugar and a lot of cocoa which is very unhealthy? Well, this doesn't give you a free pass to strap a box of Bon Bons to your face. Some chocolates are packed such that they have a more powerful health punch than others, thanks to naturally occurring healthy chemicals found in cacao. The higher the amount of cacao, the darker the treat and the more health benefits you'll reap, such as reduced blood pressure and a better mood. Therefore, get into your kitchen, microwave melt some dark chocolates and dip your strawberries in the pool of healthy chocolate sea! Remember, only dark chocolates and not milk or white chocolates as milk and white chocolates are dangerously unhealthy as compared to dark chocolates which is loaded with antioxidants and are beneficial to our health. Here, you can make yourself oh-so-happy, indulging yourself in the goodness of the rich dark chocolate and fresh strawberries!Hope you've picked up some hacks on how to lift up your mood when faced with greens and healthy bitterness!
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