With childhood obesity levels on the rise and a sedentary lifestyle becoming the norm, it is more important than ever to try and get our children to make healthy choices when it comes to food. But this is often easier said than done, so what tips and tricks can we do to help our children to choose wisely.
Variety
Variety of texture, taste and colour is key. For example, pizza may be considered on the less healthy side but make it with wholemeal flour and allow your children to top it with an array of colourful vegetables and suddenly it becomes vitamin-rich.
Cabbage, when boiled, may not be to everyone's taste but cook it in a little olive oil to give it a bit of a crunch and the texture changes making it more palatable to lots of children.
Carrots with pepper on them taste very different to carrots cooked in a tomato sauce or when mashed. Serving foods in a variety of forms may prevent your child from thinking that they don’t like a particular fruit or vegetable.
Make food exciting
Cutting normal food into interesting shapes may make them more appealing. For example, these fruit flowers are made with a skewer and a cookie-cutter but are very visually appealing. Similarly cutting sandwiches into triangles instead of squares changes things up a little.
Get them involved
Learning how food is made and helping to prepare it can be key to getting children to try new things. From letting them choose which spice is added to rolling out dough, the immersive experience can be very appealing
Offer healthy choices
Children are often hungry when they come home from school to ensure that you have a selection of healthy choices for them. This banana sushi is filling full of goodness and very easy to make. You simply need a banana, a wrap, some peanut butter and chocolate spread. Wrap and cut into little sushi chunks. If your child doesn’t like bananas try it with avocado.
Hide the veg
Many vegetables can be hidden into food easily. For example, a pasta sauce can contain carrots blended so that you can't see them, a soup can contain a multitude of vegetables and you can even make cakes with veg.
An easy way to give your child extra nutrients is by giving them superfood juices each day. For example, our fruity Elixir Vitality juice contains 72% of the RDA of Vitamin C and our organic Wheatgrass juice contains similar nutrients to three heads of Broccoli. To order yours simply visit our shop here today.
