Vegetables for Kids Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cabbage

Cabbages began to be grown by people in their gardens and fields about 1,000 years BC. Before that, as with all the vegetables in this quiz, they all grew wild. This plant is packed full of goodness, such as beta-carotene, fibre, and vitamin C. Beta-carotene is good for warding off serious illness such as cancer, vitamin C helps prevent colds and sores, and fibre helps us to go to the toilet comfortably. Cabbage is delicious eaten raw, which is how I prefer it, or boiled until it is soft, then sprinkled with a bit of salt and butter.

As with all vegetables, it should be rinsed under running water before cooking or eaten raw. That helps wash away and fertilisers or pesticides or bugs. Bugs, I might add, are very fond of cabbage.

Answer: Potato

Yummo, there's nothing nicer than a big scoop of hot mashed potatoes after they've been peeled and boiled, then mashed up with butter, a little bit of milk, a pinch of salt and some pepper. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Potatoes grow underneath the ground. The top part of the plant flowers above ground, and when the flowers die off, that usually means the potato is ready to be dug up. Make sure you always wash them thoroughly before peeling and cooking because they're covered in dirt at first. This vegetable was introduced to the rest of the world from Peru. P for Peru and P for potato. That's a good way to remember it.

Potatoes give us vitamin C, potassium, vitamin B6, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, iron and zinc. Wow! Did you know that, if necessary, a person could survive solely on potatoes as long as they had a bit of milk and butter as well. This is because potatoes give us almost all the vitamins and minerals our bodies need. Potatoes can even be eaten raw, sprinkled with a bit of salt. That tastes yummy too, except it's an acquired taste. Most people are horrified if you suggest it to them.

Answer: Pumpkin

Some people scoop the inside out of pumpkins on Halloween and then carve faces in the left-over shell. By placing a candle inside the shell, it gives an image of an eerily glowing face, which gives me the creeps. I prefer to eat my pumpkin, not scoop out the inside and throw it away, but I hate peeling them. It's hard work! This vegetable is delicious boiled and mashed up with a bit of butter and a tiny bit of sugar. At least that how my mother made it. Pieces of pumpkin are also nice baked as well, but one piece is quite enough for me. Over in Kenya in Africa, the people there eat the pumpkin leaves and fry the seeds and eat them as well. These are dried out and given to birds or sold by health shops in other parts of the world.

This vegetable is thought to have come originally from North America. It grows on a vine which runs along the ground and produces a lovely flower as well as the pumpkin itself. As you can see from this photograph, these pumpkins are ready to be gathered up. Some people make pies and scones and pumpkin soup and other treats like that out of mashed pumpkin as well.

Answer: Carrot

Carrots, like potatoes, also grow under the ground. These are known as root vegetables and they were grown first by people in Europe and Asia. Biting into a lovely fresh raw carrot which has been rinsed under the tap makes the best crunchy noise under the sun. I far prefer my carrots eaten raw, and actually detest the cooked ones. Carrots are very good for our eyes. You never see a rabbit wearing glasses do you? That was a corny joke.

They contain protein, fibre, nitrate, antioxidants, minerals and a pile of other healthy vitamins that I can't be bothered typing out.

They're good to eat if you have tonsilitis the health people tell us. They probably are, without a doubt. It's just that if you have a sore throat, I'm not sure you'd feel like munching into a carrot. So eat them every day to keep tonsilitis away in the first place! Carrots are also good to eat if you have pains in your stomach, gas, or feeling a bit queasy with digestive problems.

Answer: Corn

Oh yum again. Corn cooked on the cob is one of the nicest treats ever. Obviously you peel the leaves off first (use them for mulch in your garden), and then either boil the corn until the kernels are tender, or roast it. Lay it flat on your plate, then rub butter into it, and sprinkle it with salt and a bit of pepper, and oh my goodness, what a delicious treat. Corn is known as maize by some people.

It was first cultivated in South America. It's chocker-block full of fibre and really good for us as well. All vegetables are in fact.

The secret is in the cooking and the flavour and how they're dished up. That's what makes our taste buds perk up and take an interest. Some countries now are even growing corn to produce petrol and fuel for their cars, so if it can get a car going, imagine what it does for us!

Answer: Cauliflower

Cauliflowers were first grown as a crop in Europe. Hundreds of different varieties are now grown all over the world and these come in many different colours. White cauliflowers are the most commonly seen version on our dinner plates. Packed full of fibre, folate and vitamin C, this is a very low calorie vegie, so it has the double whammy of being good for us, but non-fattening as well.

Not that most vegetables are particularly fattening anyway. Cauliflower is another of those vegetables believed to protect us all against cancer, as well as tasting nice as well.

It can be cooked in a variety of different ways or eaten raw. They're quite nice raw. Break off a little floret some time, wash it, and try it for yourself. Some people even eat the leaves as well, but I draw the line at that. Give them to your rabbit instead.

Answer: Peas

Shudder, I wouldn't even give brussels sprouts to my dog, but this vegetable fortunately tastes much nicer than they do. Peas grow in pods, with several peas in each pod. If you crack open a pea pod when it's lovely and fresh off the vine, it makes a lovely popping sound. This is known as shelling the peas. Don't just throw the pods out afterwards though. Use them as garden mulch instead. Some people like to eat peas raw. I do not, and think they taste strange, but everybody is different. Cooked peas are nice when boiled with a tiny bit of sugar in the water.

Peas were first grown in the Mediterranean and Middle East regions of the world. They were a good crop to grow in times of famine when many other crops were failing. They're very ap-pea-ling dished up hot, by themselves, and with a dob of butter melting on the top. They're high in protein, minerals and vitamins, and produce lovely little flowers before the vegetables begin to develop on the vine. Hard to eat with a knife and fork unless you turn the fork upside down; I always spill a few on the floor. Someone once wrote a little poem about that. It goes "I eat my peas with honey/ I've done it all my life/ It makes the peas taste funny/ But it keeps them on the knife".

Answer: Beans

Green beans are also known as string beans. They grow on a vine as well. The worst thing about eating them used to be the tiny strings of fibre that grew down the sides of each bean. This sometimes got stuck in your teeth, or wrapped round your tonsils (I'm exaggerating a bit there just for fun), but now beans have been bred to grow without these strings. They've had their corsets removed in other words. Beans grow anywhere in the world, and can be cooked and eaten by themselves, or chopped up and mixed in with other dishes, such as stews and casseroles. They're also nice to eat raw. Nice and crunchy. Wash them first of course.

Have you heard the term corsets before? It was a very uncomfortable garment that women used to wear in the olden days so that when it was laced up, it gave them a nice tiny waist and a nice firm shape to their backsides. A lot of women laced them too tightly and used to faint as a result. It was a very silly fashion and, thank goodness, nobody wears them today.

Answer: Zucchini

This isn't a very good photograph, but I wanted to show you the difference between the inner and outer parts of a zucchini. A zucchini is related to squash, another vegetable. Without flavour added to them when they're cooked, they're rather tasteless, but throw that flavour in, or mix them with other vegetables, and some really delicious dishes can be produced.

A zucchini also produces a lovely flower while the vegetable is developing on the vine, and some people eat these as well. No thank you. I might swallow a bee.

Then I'd really be buzzing along. The American people first grew this vegie domestically and it was taken to the rest of the world, particularly to Italy, from there. Mostly zucchini is cooked before eating, but sometimes it's grated and presented raw in salads and so on as well. That tastes quite nice too.

The skin is always left on this vegetables no matter which way it's eaten. It'd be awfully messy trying to peel a zucchini, and there wouldn't be much left to eat if you did.

Answer: Broccoli

Broccoli is a member of the cabbage family. Mostly it is cooked before eating, but it can be eaten raw as well if you're related to a goat. Some people like to dish it up raw at fancy parties, where they serve it as hors d'oeuvre. That's French for "apart from the main work" and it means small nibblies served before a main course. I think serving it raw before these parties ensures that everyone will eat the main course instead. This vegetable was first grown in the Mediterranean. It's high in vitamin C and fibre and other essential nutrients. It makes quite a pretty plant for the garden as well. So if you didn't want to eat it, you could at least admire it from a safe distance.

And that's the end of the quiz. Vegetables really are good for us, and, properly cooked and presented, really delicious as well. You'll find as you grow older, that you begin to like them more and more. Until then, try to enjoy them as much as you can and imagine that they're like soldiers, fighting to keep your body all lovely and healthy for you every day. I didn't like vegetables when I was your age, but I really do like them now. Nothing is impossible.