Few would dispute the importance of whole foods in our children’s diets, but these days so much food is pre-packaged for convenience that it can be difficult to convince kids to make healthy choices.
Fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods may take a little longer to prepare, but with a few simple recipes, introducing whole foods to your kids can be a lot easier than you think.
A good way to get kids interested in food is by having them help prepare meals. Good eating habits can also begin in the supermarket. Involving your kids in the selection of healthy foods can create habits that they will carry through to adulthood.
Even better: plant a few containers of fresh fruit or vegetables on your patio to give the kids an opportunity to see the growing process from start to finish. Tomatoes do particularly well in containers and have a quick yield time, so kids can see the process through without losing interest.
But let’s not be unrealistic—a plate of brown rice and steamed cauliflower in front of a five-year-old is going to have them begging for Spaghetti-O’s quicker than you can say, “Try it—it’s nutritious.”
Most kids aren’t concerned with the nutritional content of their food—they just want it to taste good. So how do we strike a balance? It’s not as hard as you may think to mimic prepared foods that are on the supermarket shelf.
The recipe below for chicken tenders breaded in rice crumbs and parmesan will taste similar enough to the frozen, pre-packaged kind that kids won’t complain, but these have significantly more nutritional value.
You can add a little cauliflower to a delicious Mac and Cheese by cleverly puréeing the cauliflower into a creamy sauce—a great way to get extra vitamin C into a dish that kids love.
But change doesn’t happen overnight. Begin by introducing one new food to your kids each week, and don’t feel guilty about using a reward system. If letting the kids have ice cream is the trade-off for trying a new vegetable, there’s no harm in that.
Remember that the eating habits kids develop may stay with them through life—so start them off right.