Safe Food for Toddlers

The foods you give your children in their early years can have an impact on their life-long eating habits. That's why the pre-school years are a really important time for parents to form healthy food habits with their children. Nutritionists give helpful advice to get your little ones started on the right foot.

Considering their small body size, toddlers have an enormous need for energy. And for those under two years of age, a diet low in fat and high in fibre is not the best option. That's because these foods can fill toddlers up too fast so that they can not eat enough to meet their energy needs. The opposite is true for adults, of course where a low-fat, high-fibre diet is recommended to keep us fuller for longer.

Toddlers should ideally try and eat a wide variety of foods that are high in the essential vitamins and minerals needed to help their growing bodies. At this stage of their lives, they can also have low-iron stores so it is important to include some iron-rich foods in their diets.

Starchy foods like wholegrain breads and cereals, rice, pastas and potatoes should form the basis of most meals and are great for long-lasting energy release, perfect for active toddlers!

Needed for the development of healthy teeth and bones, dairy products like milk, yoghurt and cheese, and dark green vegetable are excellent sources of calcium for small children. And to help boost iron levels and keep blood healthy, meats (particularly red meats), oily fish, eggs, peas, beans, dark green vegetables and fortified breakfast cereals are great iron sources for toddlers.

Vitamin A helps keep skin healthy and benefits developing immune systems-red and orange-coloured fruit and vegetables, dairy products, dried fruit and oily fish are all god sources of vitamin A.

Vitamin C can be found in most fruits, vegetables and potatoes. Vitamin C helps the immune system and helps the body absorb iron, keeps skin healthy it is an anti-oxidant, great for toddlers!

For strong, growing bones, vitamin D is also needed to absorb calcium in the diet and can be found in oily fish, eggs, dairy products and margarines.

Studies show that the larger the variety in your toddlers diet, the better nutritional intake they have. That's because different foods provide different nutrients. The trick with toddlers is to find a variety of foods they will eat that will cover the important nutrient families, and then build from there.

There is no magic number of different foods that it takes to have a large enough variety, but it appears that people who eat at least 40 different foods have a more nutritious diet. Most of the important nutrients are obtained over the course of several days.

Naturally most toddlers won't come close to that, nor will many school age children, or even some picky adults. If you stop to count, you might find that their diet includes a wider variety of foods than you initially thought.