For moms, providing the best possible nutrition for their little ones is the top priority. As babies grow to become toddlers and school-age children, nutritious food and beverages emerge as the most crucial factors in helping children’s minds and bodies develop to their full potential. As such, moms take great care to do their research and compare ingredients, brands, and recipes to ensure that every bite of food gives their kids as many growth-boosting nutrients as possible.
This is something you are highly likely to have experienced yourself, as a mother — flipping through childcare books, scrolling through websites, learning organic food recipes, and asking your friends and family for advice on planning a healthy balanced diet for kids.
However, in your determination to load the dinner table with tasty, healthy treats, you might miss out on an experience that can make a world of difference within your household. Rather than puttering around the kitchen all day plating meals and packing snacks, why not let your little ones help you whip up your next meal?
Getting kids in the kitchen
You may be serving up the most nutritious dishes, but that’s no guarantee that your kids will automatically wolf them down. Toddlers and school-age children are discovering ingredients and flavors that they do and don’t like, which means mealtimes at home can often become a negotiation, if not an all-out war.
One of the best ways to help little ones warm up to a variety of foods is to involve kids in the food preparation process. Try it a few times each week and watch — you may soon observe your kids becoming more willing to try broccoli if they help cut the florets (under your supervision, of course) to make them look like “little trees,” for example. Kids might be enticed to eat some new fruits, like passionfruit or mango, if they help in scooping out the flesh or slicing them into fun little cubes. They may be happy to finish a whole blueberry or banana-carrot muffin if they help you scoop the batter into the baking tins.
Eager to get your kids eating healthier by recruiting them to be part of your kitchen crew? Here are some easy ideas for tasty and healthy meals and snacks that your kids can help you make:
Chicken and Swiss Cheese Quiche
With your help, kids can cut the cooked chicken and vegetables into small cubes as well as grate the cheese. They’ll be fascinated with mixing them all together with eggs and watching them bake in the oven. It’s a fun, yummy breakfast item to share with the whole family. And quiches, when made in muffin tins, are also easy to pack for on-the-go individual snacks.
Homemade Pizza
Who doesn’t love pizza? Kids will be especially excited to eat them when they get to prepare the ingredients and assemble them over the crust on their own. Just make sure that they agree to include a couple of healthy toppings, such as sliced bell peppers or mushrooms, to add to the toppings they really like.
Soup
Whether you’re making a clear soup, creamy chowder, or hearty minestrone, let your kids take over the soup-stirring duties and they’ll be sure to help themselves to anything that’s in the soup pot. To sneak in plenty of nutritious items, you can finely grate or mince carrots, peppers, zucchini, and other vegetables and throw them into the pot before you hand over the ladle to your little ones.
Salad on Crackers
Kids may be hesitant to try salads like egg salad or tuna salad, but you can enlist their help in putting them together so they’ll know what’s in them. Afterwards, you can get them to heap the salad onto crackers for fun and tasty bites. You can also turn them into sandwiches — spoon the salad between two pieces of bread, use cookie cutters to form shapes, and watch them pop those salad sandwiches into their mouths.
Creamy Fruit Popsicles
Kids love cool treats, and popsicles are certainly no exception. Add a healthier twist to these pops by using organic chilled almond or coconut milk instead of regular milk for blending with the fruits of your choice. The little ones are sure to be delighted by the colorful liquids produced after blending as well as the act of pouring the creamy, fruity concoctions into the popsicle molds for storing in the freezer.
And what’s extra delightful about these treats is that they’re delicious and nutritious for everyone. That’s definitely a bonus on a hot day.
Getting kids involved in practicing healthy eating habits
Ensuring that kids get all the nutrients they need from the food they eat is a major concern for any parent.
While it may be easier to order takeout or hand the little ones bags of chips or juice boxes to get snack and mealtimes done in no time at all, it’s important to understand that such foods won’t provide the nutritional benefits that developing bodies and minds require. However, parents need not serve expensive gourmet meals or use exotic health foods as ingredients for nutritious meals, either.
Sometimes, the best approach to take can be the simplest one. In this case, parents can just choose fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy and other ingredients from wholesome and organic supermarket to prepare snacks and dishes that kids will love to eat often.
If possible, moms and dads can take the kids along when grocery shopping (or get them to help find items from a list if you shop online) to help them become familiar with all the ingredients available to choose from. And it’s best to include your children each time you get family meals ready so that they can become more interested and excited to enjoy everything on their plate, every time.
With the simple meal and snack ideas shared above, you’ll find it easier than ever to get your kids eating healthy, delicious fare — and what’s more, you’ll be spending lots of fun quality time with the kids in the kitchen, too.
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