Aug 16 2010
Healthy Foods That Your Kids Will Love
Foods Kids Love
You may be struggling with getting your kids to eat healthy, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Just a few tips and tricks to use during mealtimes, and you’ll both be happy. Food can be healthy and fun at the same time. Let’s look at a few fun ways to serve healthy foods to your family all day long:
Start with Breakfast – Feed your kids a healthy breakfast by replacing those prepackaged cereals, pastries, and bars with something better.
These processed foods contain lots of sugar and unidentifiable ingredients from biology class. That includes those so-called healthy breakfast or protein bars.
Replace these sugary foods with healthy foods like a whole-wheat, sun-dried tomato, or spinach tortilla burrito. Fill a tortilla with fruit, or scrambled eggs, cheese, and turkey bacon for a delicious and nutritious breakfast that your kids will have fun eating. Create a grab-and-go breakfast by wrapping the filled tortillas in parchment paper. Another quick and fun breakfast is whole grain pancakes with naturally sweet fruit toppings. To make breakfast time a little easier, make the pancakes the night before and warm them in the microwave in the morning.
Time for a Snack – Kids typically will ask for sweets when they’re looking for a snack.
Give them their sweets, but in a healthy way with applesauce and homemade oatmeal cookies. You want to make a batch of your own cookies so you can control the sugar, even substituting honey. Fruit roll ups that are 100% fruit are great ways to give your kids snacks without tons of sugar.
Sugary fruit drinks are easily replaced with fresh fruit juice. You can even cut the cost in half by adding water to the fruit juice and, if served over ice, your kids will think they got quite a fancy drink. Eliminate sodas by serving flavored tonic water with a fresh slice of fruit for garnish. Your kids will enjoy their fancy grown-up drink and never miss the soda.
Lunch is Ready – Whether packing a lunch for school or feeding your kids at home, you want something filling, healthy, and quick. Their day is busy, and so is yours. With a few lunch box tricks, you can have your kids well fed quickly. Just take a look at some of your kids favorite foods and make the same dishes with healthier ingredients.
Two of the foods that come to mind are mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. You can make both easily and with healthier ingredients than the prepackaged varieties. Cook a batch of whole wheat pasta and mix with a cheesy sauce made with skim milk and creamy low fat cheese. Cut chicken breasts into two inch pieces, roll in a milk and egg bath, dip in crushed corn flakes or cornmeal, and bake on a cookie sheet until crispy. These are two simple foods that can be made ahead and packed up for lunch or heated quickly at home.
Dinner Time – It’s the end of a busy day and your kids are hungry again. If you make a dinner for grownups like pot roast, mashed potatoes, and carrots, you may not have happy kids around the table. Instead, get your kids involved with the meal planning and they will eat healthier; and happier. Look at the dinnertime menu as a time to find kid-tested dishes that you can make healthy.
Homemade pizza is a great place to start. You choose the healthy toppings, but your kids have fun by creating their own arrangement. Tacos are another fun food that kids can “build” themselves to encourage healthy eating habits. Again, you provide the healthy choices; they provide the fun. Combine the fun of pizza with the fun of tacos by laying small tortillas out on a cookie sheet. Top them each like you would a pizza, bake until crisp, and each child has their own individual taco-pizza.
The secret to getting kids to eat healthy is preparing and serving foods in a fun way. Kids will eat healthy food when presented with a fun way to enjoy it. Use your imagination and excellent planning and you’ll have plenty of nutritious fun foods to feed your kids. Use these simple ideas to start and soon you’ll have your kids eating healthy meals every day – and liking it!
Are you a mom who’d rather play than cook? If so, you won’t want to miss FreeQuickRecipes.com where youll find quick snack ideas for mothers and others.
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