Jennifer Garner Has The Best-Kept Secret For Getting Kids To Eat Their Veggies
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Jennifer Garner knows what life is like for a busy mom. From bouncing between acting gigs, back-to-back meetings, and picking her three kids up from school and practice, she certainly wears many hats. But regardless of how many responsibilities she's juggling, Garner always makes time for high-quality food.
If you scroll though her social media posts, you can find the actress picking fresh blueberries from her backyard garden, whipping up some of her favorite recipes on her popular Instagram series Pretend Cooking Show, and hanging out with her bestie Ina Garten. For Garner, food is more than just a hobby; it's what brings her family together.
"When I'm home on weekends, I'm cooking from the minute I wake up to the minute I go to bed. I just make whatever [my kids] ask for," Garner says. What sorts of recipes do they request? Think homemade fish sticks, meatballs, and empanadas. For Garner, balancing homemade components with thoughtful shortcuts makes nutritious meals happen in a snap.
One of her kids' favorite lunches is burritos. "I'll brown ground turkey and add taco seasoning, it's so simple," she says. "I'll make homemade guacamole and salsa, then I always use A Dozen Cousins' black beans because it's fast but still fabulous. I'm just making burritos as fast as I can on weekends."
Weekend cooking also allows Garner to take it slow and make more decadent dinners. "My kids love when I make Ina Garten's roast chicken with the potatoes that Emily Blunt had in Ina's last cookbook," she reveals. "She's the potato master. I make them every single weekend."
Whether it's a quick snack or a more involved meal, you're bound to find fresh fruits and vegetables on every plate. According to Garner, there are several secrets to get kids to eat their veggies and actually enjoy them.
First, if you have the opportunity, get them involved at the source. "The most effective way to get them to enjoy vegetables is to grow them yourselves. Nobody can resist a fresh-off-the-vine cherry tomato or cucumber," she says. "I have watched it with my own kids. They have never walked past the green beans in our garden without stopping to pick a few as they're getting in the car, just because they're right there and they're tasty." If you don't have the time, space, or energy to grow your own food, try stopping by your local farms and orchards with your kids to pick your own seasonal produce.
Second: have them available for snacking. "One thing I always have out is fresh fruits and vegetables, especially when I'm cooking and the kitchen smells really good. My kids will come in looking for crackers or corn chips. Instead, I put out anything out that’s really fresh, like raw green beans and broccoli and carrots," Garner says. "You don't need to fuss about it, like, 'Hang on, I made steamed green beans for dinner.' Who cares how they eat the green beans—just get them in there."
Last but not least, Garner's secret for getting kids to enjoy fresh food is to start early. "How you build that palette when they're little is everything. If you start early enough with true fresh fruits and vegetables and grains, you can help your child just build a preference for fresh," she says. "They'll know what sunshine tastes like, they'll know what texture is, and they won't be looking for the kind of artificial sweetness and artificial flavor that they're going to be offered everywhere else."
Introducing fresh food at a young age was part of Garner's inspiration behind her children's food brand Once Upon A Farm. "I really wanted to help solve this problem for moms who are busy and working. There was truly such a gap in in the marketplace for moms who just are looking at baby food and everything is so over-processed, overheated, over-everything."
Enter Once Upon A Farm, which sells baby food and kids snacks that are organic, non-GMO, and Clean Label Project-certified. In fact, it's the first brand of its kind to receive the Clean Label Project Purity Award.
"We're offering moms food that packs veggies in every serving, no added sugar, no metals, pesticides, or plastics. It's is truly cleaner than they could probably make it home," Garner says. Even Garner's own children can vouch for Once Upon A Farm's lineup of snacks; her teenaged daughter takes two pouches of overnight oats to school daily.
Beyond Once Upon A Farm's mission to provide food made with nutrition in mind, Garner and her team are also dedicated to making it accessible to all.
Once Upon A Farm has partnered with Save The Children for their A Million Meals initiative. First launched in 2021, the brand pledged to help provide one million meals to children in food-insecure communities in rural America by 2024. Through financial investments, company-wide volunteering, product donations, and more, Garner and her team at Once Upon A Farm are dedicated to providing proper nutrition to kids nationwide.
"There's nothing more compelling and more upsetting than the idea that there are 17 million kids in America who are growing up in food insecure homes, 6 million more than before the pandemic. It's mind blowing," says Garner. "A child's job is to play, to learn, to grow, and to be healthy. They can't do those things if they're not being fed."
In just the first year, Once Upon A Farm helped deliver more than 175,000 meals through Save the Children's early education and food programs. By the end of 2022, they aim to double, if not triple, their contribution. On top of that, Once Upon A Farm will donate 25 cents to Save The Children for every pouch of overnight oats purchased. You can find them, along with the rest of Once Upon A Farm's products, at grocery stores nationwide and online.
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