Should I hide vegetables in my picky eater's food?

It's tempting, and the puree-in-the-mac-and-cheese trick is everywhere — but for a genuinely picky kid it usually backfires. Picky eaters trust their safe foods because those foods are predictable. The first time your kid bites into the mac and cheese and finds it tastes off, you haven't gotten vegetables in — you've made a safe food unpredictable. Kids have dropped a staple for good over one discovered zucchini.

A lower-risk version: boosting foods your kid never inspects closely (a smoothie they already drink, pancake batter) is less likely to blow up than doctoring a sacred food like the blue-box mac.

The longer game that feeding therapists recommend: keep serving vegetables openly, on the table, with zero pressure to eat them. Exposure without pressure is slow, but it builds toward a kid who eats vegetables — hiding builds toward a kid who audits their plate.