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I love this idea because it solves two problems: 

1.) impatient, hungry children and

2.) getting kids to eat more vegetables.

Problem:   It happens all too often when I’m  preparing dinner and the children suddenly decide that they’re starving and they can’t wait another minute.  I don’t want to feed them their dinner early and miss out on having dinner as a family when their Dad comes home.

Solution:  Give them their vegetables first.   I tell them something along the lines of:  “we’re going to eat the rest of our dinner with Dad, but if you’re too hungry to wait, then you can eat your broccoli while you wait.”  My kids do like vegetables, so they usually don’t complain and they eagerly eat the offered vegetables.  If they do complain I usually tell them something along the lines of.  “That’s ok, if you don’t want to eat broccoli, then you can just wait till Dad is home and eat the rest of the food when we eat as a family.”  I just leave it at that and don’t allow any bargaining.

It works great for me.  The kids stop complaining and they eat more vegetables than they would have if the vegetables were served along with the rest of the food.  Today they finished all of the broccoli and cauliflower before dinner even started and bargained with each other for who got to eat the last bite of broccoli.

Other applications:  It also works great for lunch or snack.  I serve them a progressive lunch or snack starting with the healthiest thing and progressing through the offerings in order of nutritional value.  Sometimes they’re full before I even get a chance to make the less healthy main course of Mac N Cheese or frozen pizza.  It sounds complicated, but it’s really not.  It can be as simple as giving them carrot sticks or apple slices to munch on while you make their peanut butter and jelly sandwich.