Hi there.
My name is Taesha and I am so happy you have poking around here on The Natural Nurturer.
I’m a former teacher and self-taught home cook based in the San Diego area, where I live with my husband and daughter.
I started The Natural Nurturer as a place to share my family-friendly veggie-loaded recipes. Simple recipes that helps you feed your family amazingly healthy food that they love, but also fits into your the busy life.
My goal with each and every recipes is to help you and your family love your veggies and discover all sorts of creative ways to get them into your life. I share everything from easy weeknight dinners you can throw together in a flash to simple veggie-loaded muffins, smoothies and pancakes for breakfast, and even veggie-loaded desserts that will dazzle your family.
My veggie-loaded approach of getting veggies in at all the meals in all sorts of ways has changed how my family eats as it has changed so many others.
A bit about how I got here….
In case you were wondering, no…..I didn’t always eat like this. I think I was the most veggie-resistant of eaters as a kid (sorry Mom and Dad) and went into my adult years seeing veggies as the food enemy. Vegetables were something you ate to “be healthy” and were a food to be scarfed down instead of enjoyed.
It wasn’t until I became a mom that I started changing my veggie tune.
My young daughter, who had always been a wonderfully diverse eater, turned 2 and hit the very age-appropriate picky phase. As an Early Childhood Expert, I knew it was coming and wasn’t alarmed. But I also really wanted her little growing body to have all the vitamins and minerals it needed to grown strong and healthy.
The veggie-loaded approach was born…
So I started getting creative with how I was offering her vegetables and made sure they were on her plate at all meals so that she grew up seeing vegetables as a normal part of life.
With patience, creative veggie-loaded recipes and regular exposure…my daughter soon was eating vegetables in all sorts of ways!
I was so excited about helping my daughter love her vegetables in a positive way, that I started bringing my veggie-loaded recipes and approach into my preschool classroom. My students and I would read books about veggies, make veggie-loaded recipes together and explore vegetables in all sorts of creative ways. I soon saw my veggie-loaded approach helping each of them become more open to vegetables and taking my recipes and strategies home with them. The veggie-loaded approach was creating a ripple effect into my students families and I knew I was onto something truly helpful.
What is the veggie-loaded approach?
Veggie-loading” is adding vegetables into meals and recipes in all sorts of different ways. It can be as simple as adding avocado to the breakfast plate, grating carrots into some oatmeal or something a bit more exciting like blending spinach into muffin batter.
Veggie-loading is looking for creative ways to add vegetables to all the meals not only for our health but to help make oh-so-good-for-you vegetables a normal part of our life in an enjoyable way!
Is veggie-loading the same as hidden veggies?
While veggie-loading is about adding more vegetables into your family’s diet in creative ways that are not always super obvious, it is not about being sneaky. It’s about exploring!
I encourage people to view veggie-loading as trying different ways to eat AND enjoy ALL THE VEGGIES! Bring your kiddos into the kitchen with you so that they know there is, indeed, spinach in those brownies they are chowing down…even if they can’t see the spinach in the end product. And let them know that there are lots of different ways to eat spinach (and other veggies), even if they don’t love it in the raw.
My goal with veggie-loaded recipes is to help YOU expose your family to vegetables in many different ways so that they can find their favorite ways to enjoy more vegetables.
Why does veggie-loading help people eat/love more veggies?
Because veggie-loading repeatedly brings vegetables into every meal. Research shows that repeated exposure to vegetables helps people (children and adults) develop a taste for veggies. The more veggie-loaded foods you serve, the more your family will develop a taste for veggies! And soon, they might be eating that spinach in salads instead of in their brownies!
Thank you so much for being here!
If you find veggie-loaded recipes and the approach to change your life or you just have a handful of veggie-loaded recipes that you make on repeat, I am SO GLAD you are here. I hope that this site can play some small part in making your days a little, tastier, healthier and veggie-loaded!
Love,
Taesha