What do you have against vegetables, kid?

Why does the word "vegetable" invoke fear and disgust in children?  I mean, we all start out with the best intentions with our kids when it comes to food: When they're babies, we start them on all the pureed favorites: sweet potatoes, squash, smashed peas.  And usually they react fairly positively.  I swear, my son was thinking, "Oh, so there is more to life than the white liquidy stuff in that bottle."  But then somehow their tastes change.  As they grow, there's more good food to try and well - veggies don't taste quite as good as chocolate ice cream.  And so starts the "if you eat your green beans THEN you can have the chocolate ice cream" battles.  Fun times, no?

Now, my son Ryan won't eat vegetables at all.  Short of standing on my head or force-feeding him with a large spatula, I have tried several ways to get him to eat them, even "hiding" them in other recipes, but to no avail.  So tonight I thought I would try him on sweet potato fries.  He loves French fries, so why not serve these? - I thought.  Surely he will eat them up and not even think twice that they may be something other than... regular potato fries.  He won't even notice that they are bright orange.  Well, I thought wrong.  He took one bite, looked at me with an arched eyebrow (I swear), and promptly spit it out onto the table.  Damn kid is too smart.  And stubborn.  Pushed his plate away and said, "All done."  Defeated... again.

(In this picture, he is only eating the strawberry garnish.  What, you don't garnish your chicken fingers and sweet potato fries meals?)

My husband thinks Ryan will turn into some starved, sickly child because he will eat not only his veggies, but barely anything else. I tell him he'll eat when he's hungry, even if that means only on Tuesdays at 4 p.m.  And whaddya gonna do?  I read somewhere it's a parent's job to offer food - and it's the child's job to eat it.  So I've done my job.  Anyone out there have some really cool "get-any-kid-to-eat-veggies" trick?  If so, share your thoughts in the Comments section below, pretty please.  If you do, I'll give you some chocolate ice cream.