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.

My toddler actually loves kale chips - and when we served them at a picnic, the 4 and 5 year old guests liked them too.

Our goal with our three boys was to expand the idea of what kid friendly meant. We were fortunate, we had the opportunity to travel and also living in a major metropolis we have access to pretty much anything. So our kids would rather go out for dim sum, sushi, Ethiopian, Indian vs a chain like Olive Garden or Cheesecake Factory.

Now that said, to ensure they can be like the some of their friends we make some typical kids foods: pizza using pita (they love feta and spinach), pastas, risottos, gnocchi, wraps (grilled chicken and cheese), tacos or quesadilla (corn tortilla and cheese, bean or chicken, avocado), we will have a burger occasionally, I do make ribs for them, vegetarian chilli (can add to nachos), soups (kids love a dinner or borscht and perogies)...and lots of fruits and veggies...lots of salads. And of course eggs! Omelettes, frittatas, wraps, Mcmuffjns, scrambled with cheese....

My kids tend to like all the "kid" foods too. In addition to the ones you mentioned mine really like having grilled cheese with tomato soup, fish sticks with macaroni, butter noodles with Parmesan cheese, and breakfast for dinner. I always give them a fruit and try to incorporate a vegetable where I can (raw carrots, sugar snap peas, frozen shelled peas (still frozen we call them pea Popsicles when they are frozen together in lumps of ice), corn and edamame are the ones they eat without complaining.

I've also had good luck with stir fry - although they are a little iffy on the sauces. I cook the chicken and vegetables in the pan and pull a little of those out for the kids and give it to them with plain white rice, then I add in the curry sauce or whatever and give them a small ramekin of that as well to try. Some of them they like (peanut coconut curry chicken and butter chicken with naan bread) most they just eat the plain stuff.

Most of our family dinners are pretty traditional though - a meat (they like chicken and pork tenderloin the best), a starch (mashed potatoes, rice or a box pasta side) and a vegetable (fruit for them as a backup to veggies like zucchini and asparagus). They don't eat a lot regardless so I'm not too worried about feeding them the regular kid food, it's more important for me to get cals in them than to expand their palates to exotic flavors.