Veggies Early & Often

During the critical early years, kids need access to real vegetables, and parents and caregivers need the techniques to introduce them in a way that encourages healthy, adventurous eating for a lifetime.

That’s why PHA created Veggies Early & Often in 2021 in conjunction with the release of a paper titled, Yes! Kids CAN Learn to Love Veggies. The paper shows a simple and yet profound fact: exposure to veggies early and often is key to raising adventurous, healthy eaters.

Working with early childhood education providers, medical professionals and baby and toddler food makers, we’re getting more real veggies into the foods young children eat and giving families the tools and information they need to build lasting healthy eating habits.

How we’re Raising Adventurous Eaters

Since the campaign started, our partners have made meaningful change for our youngest eaters.

We developed the Veggies Early & Often icon to help parents and caregivers differentiate veggie forward products from products that do not deliver on their veggie promise. Over 150 products meet the icons requirements, signaling to parents and Veggies Early & Often icon caregivers that the product contains over half vegetables and no additives.

We also hosted dozens of conversations with parents, medical professionals, early childhood educators and food industry leaders from all over the country where we discussed innovative approaches to increase and sustain consumption of vegetables among young children. In 2021 alone, we reached more than 16,000 people with the positive, science based messages from our research.

Partner Spotlight: Cultivating Veggie Lovers

During our Food Equity Summit, Dr. Kofi Essel, Director of the GW Culinary Medicine Program at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, spoke about PHA’s Veggies Early & Often campaign and how parents, medical professionals, educators, and leaders in the food industry can collaborate to raise a generation of veggie lovers.

Our Veggies Early & Often Partners

PHA is proud to partner with companies and early childhood education centers to introduce a new standard for vegetable offerings in the baby and toddler marketplace using PHA’s Veggies Early & Often guidelines.