Mom insists ‘lettuce chips’ are the best way to get kids to eat veggies — here’s why parents disagree

One mom’s hack for picky eaters is another’s laughing stalk.

Cooking pro Kathleen Ashmore’s tried and true trick for sneaking vegetables into her children’s diet is “lettuce chips,” or cut-up pieces of romaine lettuce dipped in her homemade red pepper salad dressing.

The private chef turned food blogger, who boasts millions of followers across social media platforms where she regularly posts her recipes, swears that fellow parents will be “shocked” at the sheer amount of lettuce their kids will munch on if they serve this dish.

“This is how I get my kids to eat an entire head of lettuce,” she said in a viral video posted to both Instagram and TikTok, showing how she cuts up a head of lettuce into bite-sized “chips” that make it “fun” for her kids to “eat salad.”

She explained that the romaine lettuce chunks serve as a scoop for the delectable red pepper dressing, a recipe she also shared on her platforms.

But viewers were divided over the benefits of her so-called parenting hack.

“Before the crazies enter the chat, my kids eat plenty of potato chips and tortilla chips too. K? K,” Ashmore preemptively defended herself in the comments section.

The Post has reached out to Ashmore for comment.

While some parents praised Ashmore for her creative way to convince kids to eat their vegetables – of which they need anywhere from one to four cups per day depending on age — others found issue with her labeling of the raw lettuce as “chips,” saying their “kids would never eat this.”

“No kid is eating this,” quipped one person on Instagram.

“I don’t think anyone’s offended by the lettuce. It’s just calling it chips that sounds ridiculous,” chimed in another.

Some users quipped the lettuce was merely “sauce transportation” and called the dish “stupid.” On TikTok, critics slammed the snack as an “eating disorder recipe,” while others explained in disbelief that the video “has to be satire.”

Mostly, it seemed that viewers had the most issues with the “nutritional value” of romaine lettuce, which multiple people falsely claimed contained none. While romaine lettuce has been touted as a “dieter’s dream” due to its low-calorie content, it is also chock-full of vitamins A, C and K plus folate, potassium, magnesium and calcium, per Healthline.

“I don’t understand who would get upset over this,” commented one viewer on Instagram, likening the “chip” moniker to calling broccoli “baby trees” for fun. “Aside from it being a fun way to eat lettuce, it just is a creative way to expose kids to eating veggies.”

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“As long as kids eat it. You can call lettuce whatever you want,” another user agreed, calling it a “great tip.”