Finding healthy versions of "normal" kid friendly foods.

Make your own pizza so you can go lighter on the toppings. Mexican is easy, just use low fat meat and less cheese. Use 85/95% burger patties.

Check skinnytaste.com, they have a tasty recipe for chicken nuggets.

ScottyT67203 wrote: »

I am a single dad with a son with Down Syndrome. I am trying to find recipes that are both low cal for me and good for us but I consider normal foods that he will eat.

I have done numerous searches and so much is healthy, but even though its for picky kids, I know he will not eat it.

I'm looking for good websites or even cookbooks specifically. He likes Mexican, pizza, burgers, hot dogs, you know... Normal kid stuff.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

You can make all those things in lower calorie versions.
Make pizza using a wrap as the base, serve it with a side salad for yourself. Burgers you can make with turkey mince, chicken sausages to do hot dogs.
Add him a little bit of the salad and side veggies, encourage him to eat them with you, make them exciting for him and he will soon want to try them.

I make my own pizza at home. And while it's not a "light" version, it is healthier than frozen or take out.

I find using a thinner crust cuts some calories, also use less cheese (can't do light or low fat cheese on pizza, wouldn't be right) and extra lean ground beef (instead of pepperoni). I have my slice(s) with a large spinach side salad w/low cal dressing and serve my SO and daughter fries with theirs.

For burgers, I do extra lean ground beef patties, with minimal spices (spices can be deadly w/SO's Chron's) and we grill them on the bbq. You can serve them on lettuce or even pita bread instead of buns. My daughter doesn't like buns so she just eats hers plain.

I'd think any finger food would be a winner.

My friend who raised four of her own children and many foster children as well (specializing in children with eating issues), brings the children in to the kitchen and welcomes creativity.

Her adult daughter confided that the family's favourite menu is "Yellow Dinner". These days a grandchild on their special day, gets to call the menu and grandma makes it. So I was happy enough to be there to witness "Yellow Dinner". All the menu items are yellow. It includes fries, chicken nuggets, and corn.

hmm, I just feed my kids whatever we are eating, so that it becomes normal food to them.

Does he have texture issues? Or just really likes having a few familiar things to eat, not variety? Are you trying to expand his palate to healthy foods?

Most kids love black olives, those have good fats.

Chili is REALLY easy to hide lots of vegetables in.

Make vegetable and meat stock and put it in the freezer, or buy some, that gives you an easy start for soups - the pasta in alphabet shapes makes any soup acceptable for most kids I have encountered, so maybe buy a box of that and throw it into anything he might find questionable.

Those baby carrots. Some kids love those, and also baby corn, you can get that in cans.

My kids like the frozen bagged fruits a LOT, the mixed pineapple/mango, or sliced strawberries, or triple berry. These make really quick desserts.

Oddly, they also really loved raw sliced turnips with ranch dressing. I don't quite get it, but they really love that.

Crackers, whole wheat crackers with an assortment of toppings.

Hard boiled eggs.

Good luck to you, I know that it is a challenge raising special needs kids, and a challenge raising kids alone. I hope you are doing ok, please take some time for yourself when you can, even 20 minutes.

I mostly feed my kids what I eat, but there are some things that I know they won't touch. The skinny taste arroz congri is great. It's my 3 year old's favorite food even with the peppers and onions in it. My 5 year old really only likes it in a burrito. We go through quite a few meals in soft tacos....My kids seem to think everything is good as long as it's in taco form.

One thing I like to do is to layer tortillas with either salsa or spaghetti sauce and cheese. I usually do 2-3 tortillas. Then you bake at 350 for about 20 minutes either either eat them as normal pizzas (spaghetti sauce) or mexican pizzas (cheese). The calories aren't bad if you pair yours with veggies.

Purple monster smoothie. Most kids will try anything with cool name. I second the fruit kabobs. Breakfast for dinner. Grilled cheese with different kinds of cheeses and ham/turkey/roast beef. Crock-Pot cheesy chicken & tater tots. Baked potato bar with different toppings. That's just on top of head.

My kids love raw veggies. I mix it up sometimes on the "dips". I use peanut butter, almond butter or hummus. Also smoothies aka shakes to kids.

Try mixing ground Turkey and lean hamburger for using in spaghetti sauce, taco meat, even a Hamburger helper! I do it, even to just stretch the meat and no one in my family notices.