Sports Nutrition Training For Young Athletes - Vegetable Challenge

Summary

• Can you send your kid to the store with a list of 10 vegetables, have them go in the store, find those vegetables and put them in the cart quickly?
• Every athlete should be able to know the name of a variety of vegetables and what they look like unprepared.
• To level up, know the benefits of vegetables. Your athlete doesn’t need to memorize the nutrition facts. One benefit will work. For example, cauliflower is high in vitamin C.
• To level up from that, know how to prepare the vegetables to eat. Let’s take carrots for example. Wash it and eat. Simple. Or you can steam, bake, or grill them. There are plenty of ways to prepare vegetables. The more your athlete knows the better. Especially when they are off to college or on their own.
• The goal is to prepare your athlete with the knowledge of a variety of vegetables, the benefits, and how to prepare them.

Full Transcript

Can you send your kid to the store with a list of 10 vegetables, have them go in the store, find those vegetables and put them in the cart quickly? I think that's a very important skill that every kid should know. And so, in this video we're going to go over three things that I think your kids should know when it comes to vegetables.

So, the first one is knowing not just the name, but knowing what they look like unprepared, uncut, uncooked, right? Just straight in the shelf, not necessarily in the ground still, but they need to know what the actual vegetable looks like. So, if all you've been having is butternut squash soup and they don't know what butternut squash looks like, then that's something to look into, right? And having them know what the actual vegetable looks like. Carrots are pretty obvious. Most kids know what carrots look like. And so, that's a start. But when you start getting a list of 10, you'll probably find there's some vegetables they don't know. Bok choy, what does that look like? And so, they can start to learn the names and what they look like and it becomes familiar with them.

To level up from that, number two would be to know the benefits. And the benefits could be something like, cauliflower has vitamin C, a lot of vitamin C, actually. It's pretty high in vitamin C. But it doesn't have to be crazy. You don't have to memorize the whole nutrition facts for cauliflower, right? Something simple. And you don't have to just memorize a benefit in terms of like vitamin C or fiber. It could be something as simple as, this one helps with digestion or this one helps with heart health. So, it's really up to you on what kind of benefits you're looking at focusing on.

And to level up from that, the third and last one I'd say is prepare it, be able to prepare all of those vegetables, and I think that's going to be the most important part. It doesn't have to be crazy. It doesn't have to be like you're trying to make a gourmet meal off of carrots, right? Carrots, you buy them, you wash them, you eat them, that's pretty much it. I don't know what else to tell you on that one. Every kid should be able to do that. If you want to get a little fancier, you can steam it, you can bake it, you can throw it in a stew or boil it. It's up to you on how you want to prepare them.

But your kids should be able to know that there's a variety of vegetables, there's a variety of benefits, and there's a variety of ways to cook most of them. If they understand that and it becomes familiar, when they go off on their own, whether they go to college or they become a collegiate athlete, they're really going to need to know that. If it's familiar before they get there and they're comfortable with knowing there's a variety of vegetables, and they're comfortable with preparing it, they're not going to have to think about that. It's going to be easy. It's going to be just something that they can do. And that's what you want because when they are in school or they're demanding high performance from their body, they're going to need those vegetables. They're going to need those benefits, and it's going to be very important to help them fuel not only their body but the brain, and to recover not only for the body and brain, but just overall, right?

So, make sure your kid understands that this is going to be an important thing. Let's get a list and just start off with a list of 10 vegetables. Learn the names, learn what they look like, learn the benefits, then learn how to prepare them. If you need some ideas of vegetables, I have a list of 10 in the description. You could start with that. There are plenty of vegetables. You can pull whatever vegetable you want, put it on your list. But that's really all I have for you for this video. I hope you enjoyed it. Again, my name is David Sabi here with Kid To Athlete. This channel was created for you, the parents, so that I can help you help your athletes become happy, healthy, and high performing. And so if you haven't already, hit that subscribe button. Let me know what you think in the comments below and I will see you on the next one.