Feeding Children Right!

Hannah_Banana

**Warning** I am one of the ' refined sugar is evil!' people. I've seen it work in my body, and the body of loved ones. I want to make sure my children grow up healthy, balanced and not addicted to it.

So I'm in desperate need of ideas. Every pre-packaged kid food imaginable has copious amounts of refined sugar. The problem is all those foods are so *easy*. For an extremely busy parent, its hard not to just reach for that cereal bar or juice box. Other problem is that of course, children love them. Its difficult to find a child who will pick a carrot stick over a piece of candy. (Not saying they're not out there, you lucky parents, you.)

I need tasty, fun, preferablly easy snacks for my 3 year old that aren't loaded with sugar. Any ideas?

froggie3716

What about apple slices, Turkey & Cream Cheese (or Laughing Cow) rolls, greek yogurt with organic granola, spelt pretzels & string cheese. Sorry, I am drawing a blank now. Hopefully these help.

MB_Positif

Oh this is SO hard for me, since my son is allergic to milk and eggs, so he does eat relatively healthy most of the time and *gasp* he does like fruits and vegetables too. However I have a hard time finding snacks for him in general. He gets bored with pretzels and popcorn. Can't wait to read what some other people suggest!

kdiamond

My kids pretty much live on fruit, I always have fruit in the house.

Other options are packaged goldfish, veggie straws, Annie's organic gummies, yogurt, go-gurt, string cheese, applesauce, cottage cheese singles w/ fruit on the side, little water bottles, pretzels, peanut butter on apple

emsibun

One each from group 1 and group 2:

Group 1:

Half a sandwich made with one slice of bread, low fat spread (or butter if that is your will), ham or cheese. Cut into three or four pieces.

Breadsticks (Grissini).

Baked cheese biscuits.

Cream crackers.

Cheese cubes.

Ham roll-ups.

A fromage frais or yogurt pot (to dip into with fruit sticks).

Group 2:

Raisins.

Banana (chopped).

Apple (chopped).

Pear (chopped).

Carrot (chopped).

Cucumber (chopped).

Mange toute or young fresh unshelled peas.

Of course you have other choices for sandwich fillings, different fruits depending on your childs tastes. But I had a similar list pinned to my notice board a few years ago when my kids were about three years old to remind me what I could make instead of reaching for a packet of potato chips or biscuits.

Hope that helps :happy:

mgreen10

When me and my sister were kids, we were fed only healthy food. And never carrot sticks...no kid wants to eat that. Unfortunately, if you want your kids to grow up smart and healthy, you can't feed them processed and packaged foods.

My mom would make something simple for dinner. Mashed potatos from scratch, some pangrilled chicken, tomato slices sprinkled with salt. Lunch would be a sandwich that me and my sister loved...rye bread with neufschatel cheese, pickle slices, tomatoes, onion slices, sprinkled with salt, pepper, italian spices. Breakfast was hard boiled eggs, pancakes (with raspberry preserves or sour cream for topping only), or cereal with slices of cheese. My sister ate a lot of green bell pepper slices that she dipped in italian dressing.

Also, we always ate what the adults ate..we never had our "own" food for kids. That makes sense to me...
And if we didnt want it, we were forced to eat it or we would go hungry that day. Eventually you learn to eat what is put in front of you instead of going hungry.

We grew up thin and healthy.

daryls

Dried fruit is great!

Make food fun - ants on a log (celery with peanut butter and raisins). Maybe make homemade smoothies with yogurt.

I LOVE Trader Joes Organic Animal Crackers...... You can definitely make those fun. I like to take the animals "swimming" in yogurt or apple sauce.

emsibun

I totally forgot to say there's a group three which is to add a tiny piece of something they have never tried before or have only recently tried. It takes many tries of a food for a child to accept it as 'nice' so this is a good way to introduce, for example, cucumber (one slice cut into 4 pieces). Three years old is a good window of opportunity for increasing the range of their food repertoire!

ka_42

larabars! They have mini versions that could be a better option too. I don't know how anyone wouldn't find them tasty.. I love them. They are sweet but have no added sugars- all the sugars are from fruit. The only downside is they're a bit expensive and a full sized bar is a little heavy on calories (200 each)

ChantalGG

Dont give your child a non healthy option. fruits, yogurts, cereals, crackers, veggie with light ranch dip if they wont get them plain, cheese, peanut butter, pretzels. make it on a fun platter of a few choices to choose from and you both can enjoy it together.

BigBoneSista

There a reciepe on here for the peanut butter balls that is good. My kids love homemade rolls with cheese and broccolli in them. They just grab them and go. They love bananas & apples they can dip in peanut butter. Greek yogurt with fresh fruit and honey. Fruit salads.

Airbear3

i need help here to and blame myself my oldest daughter is 11 and 150 lbs with high cholesterol, she WON'T eat anything remotely healthy. I was a young mom at 18 and just fed her kid stuff, hotdog mac and cheese etc. by the time i had my 2nd i had already changed my eating habbits so my 6 yearl old eats fruits and veggies with no problem. we have dinner and i always make her try just one of something good but she licks and and says its terrible. it turns into a fight...i don't want her to have a body issues or eating disorder but ido need her to be healthy. i've tried explaing to her what high cholesterol is and what it can do. sometimes she cries about her weight and i cry too cause i remeber being an over weight kid and kids are cruel. i run or walk almost every night and she always comes. its not lack of exercise...its food! HELP ME TOO!

TheMaidOfAstolat

Nuts
Cheeses
PB on toast
Home made oven fries
Waffles with berries (we make a huge batch on weekends and just freeze them and then heat them up when needed)
Banana dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in coconut or crushed almonds
Yogurt with honey or pureed berries
Pita smeared with hummus
Veggies and homemade dips

Airbear3

and also i don't make two different mealbut she'll skip the veggies or whatever the healthy part is

bcattoes

Fruit! Most kids love some type of fruit. Dried fruit is also great because it doesn't spoil as quickly and is more portable. And unless your child has a peanut allergy, peanut butter is great because most kids love it too. Make food fun. Most kids won't don't ask for celery sticks but if you fill them with peanut butter and add raisin "eyes" for a food catepillar they usually will.

I too switched to a healthy diet when I had children because I didn't want them to struggle with weight and health problems when they got older. I think one of the best things I did (mine are grown now) is start cooking more. You can make dinner in less time that you can sit in line at McDonald's if you plan ahead.

dls06

Take one day a week to cook healthy food for the week. If your kids are in school buy a thermos and send your home made food with them to school. Or freeze serving size bags or containers and they will be ready when you need them. Get recipes online. there are tons of sites for healthy recipes for kids and adults. Your kids will learn to like different things if they are not given the option. Its best to train them while they are young to have good healthy lifestyle now, then to be on diets when they get older. You will be doing yourself and your children proud by feeding them healthy now.

Oishii

Blueberries, strawberries, grapes. Just rinse and go!

We have had problems with kiddy snacks having low fibre content, so we use rye crispbreads too. My son also loves plain rice cakes, probably because we buy them on the way home from the park.

My parents kept me away from sweets when I was tiny, then gave me them every day at elementary school! I have a very sweet tooth, though, so that doesn't seem to have helped.

We do give him potato chips (aiming for ones with more fibre) but homemade popcorn also went down very well recently, with the extra excitement of the popping to make them even tastier

yankeefamily05

My daughter LOVES any kind of cheese, fruit, yogurt, goldfish, broccoli, she even eats salad as long as it is with croutons and ranch. Popcorn too.

bcattoes

i need help here to and blame myself my oldest daughter is 11 and 150 lbs with high cholesterol, she WON'T eat anything remotely healthy. I was a young mom at 18 and just fed her kid stuff, hotdog mac and cheese etc. by the time i had my 2nd i had already changed my eating habbits so my 6 yearl old eats fruits and veggies with no problem. we have dinner and i always make her try just one of something good but she licks and and says its terrible. it turns into a fight...i don't want her to have a body issues or eating disorder but ido need her to be healthy. i've tried explaing to her what high cholesterol is and what it can do. sometimes she cries about her weight and i cry too cause i remeber being an over weight kid and kids are cruel. i run or walk almost every night and she always comes. its not lack of exercise...its food! HELP ME TOO!

Buy healthier versions of some of the foods you mention. Make mac-n-cheese with whole grain pasta and low fat cheese (you can find these boxed too). Buy low fat hot dogs and white wheat buns. Make your own chili using low fat meat. Make your own pizzas using whole wheat crust (Boboli is good if you don't want to make your own) plenty of veggies and low fat cheese. Use turkey pepperoni or low fat sausage if you want meat. Make burritoes or tacos at home with lean chicken or fat free beans and low fat cheese, using low carb wraps which are available everywhere. Just switch to these things and don't even mention it. She will likely lose weight without even trying. For dessert make more jello or low fat pudding. Make cookies with oatmeal and peanut butter or nuts and natural sugars (honey, mollases) to make them more filling and lessen the insulin spike of dessert.

Bridgetc140

I wish I knew some special foods for kids. My daughter is 2 (3 in July) and NEVER wants to eat ANYTHING. I have to argue with her at every meal and she still won't eat. She should look like a skeleton by now. I'm close to tears every day with this crap. I can't take it anymore, she has been like this every since starting solid foods...so it's been about 2 years now that I have been going through this three times a day. I'm so frustrated I could explode.

bcattoes

I wish I knew some special foods for kids. My daughter is 2 (3 in July) and NEVER wants to eat ANYTHING. I have to argue with her at every meal and she still won't eat. She should look like a skeleton by now. I'm close to tears every day with this crap. I can't take it anymore, she has been like this every since starting solid foods...so it's been about 2 years now that I have been going through this three times a day. I'm so frustrated I could explode.

I know you are frustrated but I had to smile at that. I can do that now since mine are grown and gone. Some kids are just like that. But sooner or later they will eat because 2 year olds don't have the mental capacity to stage a hunger strike. Just keep healthy food available and don't make a big issue of it. She'll eat when she gets hungry enough. Just don't offer unhealthy food as a replacement or you'll have a very hard time ever getting out of that habit.

knittnponder

Mine just ate poached eggs for breakfast. They also like oatmeal, whole wheat toast (we mill our own flour and make the bread so it's as "whole grain" as we're going to get!) polenta or grits (again, we mill it) sometimes breakfast meats, scrambled eggs, omelets, green smoothies and on rare occasions: french toast, waffles or pancakes but again, we make all of these from whole grains and totally from scratch. If you have a good blender (Vitamix, Blendtec or a Bosch attachment for the Bosch mixer) you can make blender batters for the pancakes or waffles from the whole grain right in the blender with no need for a mill. Takes only a minute to throw it all in there and blend the heck out of it!

We keep a big bowl of hard boiled eggs in the fridge for when we need a fast breakfast or snack. I just boil them up once a week for convenience. I also keep fruit and string cheese on hand. My kids like celery or apples with peanut butter, apples and cheddar cheese, grapes and string cheese together, etc. We make our own almond butter and I do allow the kids to have graham crackers so they like to spread almond butter on them for a snack. Make up your own trail mix too. Then you can control what goes into it and it what proportion. I keep mine in a big jar but we just toss some in a ziplock baggie when we're heading out the door if we need a snack on the run.

In the summertime we like to peel and halve bananas then poke a stick into them. Freeze on a tray and then bag them up. When someone wants a cool treat they can roll them in yogurt and sprinkle or granola. If we're wanting dessert we dip the frozen banana in melted chocolate and it hardens pretty quickly. Yum!

I'll also make up smoothies or just fruit puree and freeze them in popsicle molds for healthy popsicles. You can use canned fruit if you want but try to just use the stuff in water/natural juice instead of the heavy syrups.

We pop popcorn in coconut oil, make our own granola, dehydrate fruit (they love apple slices with a touch of cinnamon) and they love raw veggies in dip. Oh and hummus! They love hummus with either vegetables or whole grain crackers or chips.

We started out with lots of processed stuff in our lives because that's how my husband and I grew up but gradually we've shifted away from it and make most stuff from scratch. I don't buy cereal (even hot cereals like Malt o Meal or Cream of Wheat are out since they're processed). I don't buy pop, juice or koolaid; they drink mostly water. I will occasionally buy chips but that is a very rare thing. They think sugar snap peas are about the best thing ever!

Oh and breakfast muffins are handy and good. A wholegrain muffin filled with nuts and dried or fresh fruit is handy and can be full of nutrition if done right. The Flat Belly Diet has a Flat Belly Muffin recipe that we all LOVE just because it tastes good! It's made with oatmeal and we've put raisins and nuts in it. My son absolutely adores bran muffins with prune bits in it if you can believe that! He's 11 and thinks they're fabulous, lol.

ETA: After reading some of the battles with kids that were posted while i was writing my "novel" I thought I'd amend my post with our mealtime rules.

1. We have a one bite rule. You don't have to eat it all, just take one bite of each thing served. If you don't like it, you aren't required to eat it. (We do have the occasional exception. My son had a pretty severe gag reflex when he was younger and mashed potatoes would set it off. It was a texture thing. We didn't force him to take even the one bite because we knew it was traumatic for him and he'd be gagging and couldn't control it. We're not that mean!)

2. No disparaging remarks about the food! If you don't like it that's fine but you're not allowed to make disgusting (or disgusted) noises about it or say things like "this is gross", "what is this stuff?!?!", etc. It's very disrespectful to the person who cooked it and it sets off a chain reaction in the younger siblings. A younger one might have actually liked it until big brother or sister made some snarky comment. Now suddenly no one likes it! Not allowed here. It also sets them up not to do this when they're company at someone else's house and is just good manners. All they need to say is "no thank you."

3. The meal served is what you get to eat. There will be no additional meals created for you simply because you're being picky. It is what it is! There will also be no snacking if you choose not to eat dinner. Breakfast will be in the morning and you can choose something different then.

You might not agree with our tactics but that doesn't bother me. We have four kids who eat a variety of food, read labels and are conscientious about what they put in their bodies. They're willing to try new foods and are adventurous eaters. My youngest who just turned seven asked for her special birthday dinner to be steak and brussel sprouts and I'm okay with that!

jwintonyk

One thing I give to my daughter that she absolutely LOVES is celery with peanut butter and raisins on top...we call in "Ants on a log"

rugrattamer

Good for you for wanting to feed your 3 year old with healthy food. Starting off on the right foot will hopefully eliminate a lot of unhealthy food issues in the future!

I just found this site yesterday that had a cool idea for "face lunches", Arranging foods in cute ways to form a face- definitely a fun way to serve up fruits, veggies, and other healthy foods. She had some other great ideas as well.
http://thecreativemama.com/facing-lunch/

runnerdad

When my kids were small (2 & 6), I read to give them frozen veggies, right from the freezer, to curb their appetite when you are getting home from work and they are starving and you are trying to get dinner on the table. I thought 'No way", but they loved it, and they always got all their veggies eaten by the time the main meal was cooked. Twelve years later, they are both still great fruit and veggie eaters, and often go the the freezer for a bowl of green beans if they want a bedtime snack.

kacarter1017

There are recipes for homemade granola bars that use honey and fruit for sweetners. Check out allrecipes.com- they have LOTS of them! If you're looking for quick snacks will longer lasting carbs than fruits, a multigrain or whole wheat tortilla with low fat cheese microwaved for a few seconds is a great snack!

Hannah_Banana

But sooner or later they will eat because 2 year olds don't have the mental capacity to stage a hunger strike.

That just made me laugh so hard, people at work were looking at me funny.

My kid would prefer NOT to eat if given the option. I'm not entirely sure he feels hunger, but I've never tried outlasting him before. Now I feel like I should. :laugh:

Hannah_Banana

Oh! And does anyone have opinions about cooking with molasses instead? Since its chock full of nutrients etc, especially iron. Anybody know if this might be a good "sweet" alternative?

jarrettd

I wish I knew some special foods for kids. My daughter is 2 (3 in July) and NEVER wants to eat ANYTHING. I have to argue with her at every meal and she still won't eat. She should look like a skeleton by now. I'm close to tears every day with this crap. I can't take it anymore, she has been like this every since starting solid foods...so it's been about 2 years now that I have been going through this three times a day. I'm so frustrated I could explode.

I know you are frustrated but I had to smile at that. I can do that now since mine are grown and gone. Some kids are just like that. But sooner or later they will eat because 2 year olds don't have the mental capacity to stage a hunger strike. Just keep healthy food available and don't make a big issue of it. She'll eat when she gets hungry enough. Just don't offer unhealthy food as a replacement or you'll have a very hard time ever getting out of that habit.

Amen!

Mindful_Trent

Oh! And does anyone have opinions about cooking with molasses instead? Since its chock full of nutrients etc, especially iron. Anybody know if this might be a good "sweet" alternative?

Eh - molasses is just a byproduct of the process by which they make white refined sugar. I'd avoid it, personally, and stick with raw honey and raw maple syrup.

jamie1888

I get cute ideas from the Disney Family website and other sources.....

Here's a fun frog.. made with a green apple, grapes, cream cheese and yes, I used 2 chocolate chips for the eyes. But, you could use raisins too.


Frog Apple by jamie1888, on Flickr

And here are some strawberry mice... cheese wedges, strawberries, almond slices, mini chocolate chip nose, 2 colored sprinkles for the eyes, and a candy string tail. use chocolate sprinkles instead of colored ones for mice that are less creepy/evil looking! lol I'm sure you could find another sub for the candy tail too.


Strawberry Mice by jamie1888, on Flickr