Teaching Children to like Healthy Foods

Teaching your children healthy eating habits starts when they are infants. Starting out with the baby food grinder when the baby is a few months old, you can add healthy fresh fruits and veggies to your baby's diet. It's so easy and fun too. Baby cereal such as rice cereal is usually the first solid food that is added to the baby's diet. You can mix a little soft ripe banana in with the cereal once the baby has successfully added the cereal to the diet. When adding new food items to your baby's diet you want to always add new items one at a time. If there is an allergic reaction to a new food you will know exactly what the culprit is if you add foods one at a time. Soon the baby can have just the banana without the cereal. You can always add a little milk or other liquid to thin any food to the desired consistency.

Add Fruits and Veggies

One by one you can start adding ripe or cooked fruits and veggies to your baby's diet. You want to use some common sense when choosing types of foods. You will want to eliminate hard to digest fruits and veggies. For example you would not want to use berries with seeds or similarly hard to digest foods or foods that have stringy texture, heavy peels, etc. Good fruits to start with are peeled apple or peaches cooked until tender then put through the baby food grinder. Ripe banana can be used without cooking, but be careful not to over feed any new food until you know how your child reacts to digesting the new food. Steaming vegetables until tender and mixing with a little milk, formula or water from cooking is an easy way to start the love of veggies in the baby's future. Veggies need to be tender enough to make a smooth puree when you first start, eventually you can leave a little more texture, but not until the baby is well adjusted to solid foods. Most baby food grinders have different blades, some that grind smaller and others that will leave some texture to the food. Carrots, peas, potatoes, yams are all good first veggies to give your little one. You can steam extra veggies or cook extra fruit and save for a second or third meal over the course of a couple days time. This will help to save you time and make it more convenient to always feed your baby fresh home cooked foods. Not only should you add one new item at a time to your baby's diet, but you should also feed single item foods and not more complex mixed foods until the baby is well acquainted with several different foods for a reasonable amount of time. The key is to not rush adding too many foods too fast as the baby will need time and maturity to be able to digest more complex foods.

Mix Two or More Foods Together

Gradually if your baby is enjoying several different fruits and veggies you can begin to make more complex foods. My girls both loved peaches and banana mixed together, they loved cottage cheese mixed with avocado moistened with a little orange juice. I know this sounds very weird, but they each loved it when they were a few months old. I couldn't get it to their little mouths fast enough. After becoming accustomed to fruits and veggies and after your little one is a few weeks older you can start adding a little meat. The best and easiest way is to add meat is to take small tender pieces from a stew, etc. you have prepared for the rest of the family and mix it with a little bit of potato or rice and moisten with a little milk or formula. Once the baby does okay with the meat you can eventually add a little broth from the stew to moisten and thin to the right consistency as long as it is not too highly seasoned. Or stew a small chicken breast of chicken until tender then shred and use to add with veggies to make a nice baby dinner. You can mix the shredded chicken with peas or carrots and potato and put though the baby food grinder to make a hearty meal. You can actually add some baby carrots and potato chunks in with the stewing chicken and the pea's right before the chicken is tender, so you won't need to cook veggies separately. This chicken should make several meals for a baby, you could even freeze a little of it for quick use at a later date. Pasta cooked until tender, but not overcooked, can be mixed with tender chicken or beef and peas or carrots moistened with a little chicken stock or milk to make a tasty and healthy meal in the baby food grinder. By the time the baby is eating these more complex foods you can also use the large grind blade. As long as the food is tender the baby will be able to handle a little bit of texture to their food. Most baby's have their first tooth by six months if not more. As the baby's ability to pickup finger foods and chew with their gums they are able to eat small pieces of banana, small pieces of fresh peach, eat dry cheerios, or other similar types of finger foods. As the baby turns into a toddler there ability to eat and chew foods becomes more advanced.

Toddler Meals

At this point you can make the babies meal often from the main meal that the rest of the family is eating. You can use the baby food grinder to grind some veggies, some meat etc. to make a smoother consistency and then mash with a fork to less degree some of these same ingredients and bind with a little, stock, or sauce from the meal to make a good consistency. Gradually you can add small tender chunks of veggies and or meat to the toddler meal. By this time the baby should be eating many different vegetables and fresh fruits, a variety of meats, cheeses, scrambled eggs and cooked whole grain cereals, pastas and rice. They should be able to eat whole grain bread and crackers too.

This is when making meals can be creative and fun for you and the toddler. They can eat lots of finger foods and will enjoy a nicely arranged group of foods with good color choices and cut into easily accessible pieces. When you make a plate for the toddler very appealing to look at they will relate it to with enjoyment. Breakfast can be yogurt with fresh fruit on top and half a piece of whole grain toast with peanut butter. A small salad plate of cottage cheese, fresh fruit cut into small bite size pieces, a few bite size pieces of avocado, two or three whole grain crackers arranged attractively will make a healthy and enjoyable lunch. Or you could arrange a few bite size pieces of cheese, some raisins, a few pieces or fresh apple, maybe a cracker of two with a little peanut butter spread on it. Or a nut butter to dip apples and crackers into would be healthy and fun (special awareness and care should be exercised when first giving any new food, but especially foods such as nuts that so many are allergic to). Making healthy foods desirable is so easy and fun to do. My girls loved steamed broccoli and steamed carrots to dip in ranch dressing. Cold cut turkey slices or ham for finger foods and small cheese chunks, whole grain cracker or bread and bite size pieces of tomato, cucumber or avocado and some red grapes or apple pieces makes another colorful and healthy lunch. The number of combinations is endless because your child will have developed a good appetite and acquired a palette for many healthy and delicious foods. It is a pleasure to see your child grow and love good healthy foods. If you introduce them to good foods at a young age, they will grow up eating healthy and will carry forward not only the enjoyment of good healthy food, but will also benefit from the health you have given them by supplying the right nutrients for healthy growth. What a wonderful thing to do for your child; to set them on a path of health and well being.

Joining the Family Meal

Of course by this time your child is eating with a fork and spoon and probably does a nice job eating their meal. Eating finger foods is fun lunch fare and can often work for snacks and even part of other meals. For dinner the child should be able to eat a wide assortment of things off the table with just a little extra cutting up. If the family meal is something that is very spicy or too rich it is easy to make a healthy side meal for your child. A baked sweet potato is super healthy and takes a few minutes in the microwave. Add a little meat or other protein, a veggie or a fruit and you have an easy healthy dinner. Adding seasoning to your child's food is something you should do in moderation, but the food should be well seasoned and the seasoning should be varied and expanding as the child grows. The more variety a child is exposed to at a young age the more expanded their palette will become. The picky eater will not become so much of an issue; this is not to say children will not have preferences or likes and dislikes. If you try a new food and the child continually spits it out then don't force it. There will be plenty of good foods that the child does enjoy to have a good and balanced diet. You never want to associate food with punishment or reward. Always strive to make meal time pleasant and enjoyable, not anxious, tense or otherwise stressful.

Healthy Eating for the Whole Family

Teach your child to have a healthy relationship with food and reinforce by your positive example. Remember children learn by what they see you do not by what you tell them to do. If you are eating badly, eating fast food, eating junk food, overeating, or have any other bad connection to food this will be what your child will eventually learn. If you want to teach your child to eat healthy you need to eat healthy. If you have a new baby and the family's eating habits are less than desirable then let it be a time to choose a new path. Choose health for your family. Healthy food does not have to be gourmet, difficult to make or fussy. Simple, natural food cooked with out adding bad fat, too much sugar, or overcooking can be a delicious and easy meal to prepare. Make use of fresh food in season, summer is a great time to eat local fresh fruits and vegetables. For example, fresh corn on the cob, (cut the corn off the cob for your littlest ones) a simple fresh salad with fresh summer tomatoes, a small portion of meat, poultry or fish either grilled, baked or roasted, broiled or pan fried, and a slice of good whole grain bread and you have a great summer dinner. Anyone can do this and once you start you will become more comfortable with adding a little bit more complex recipes when time allows. The important thing is that you will be confident that you know how to put a healthy meal on the table in a reasonable amount of time everyday for your family. If you missed the opportunities, to start with your child as an infant, don't be discouraged. It's never too late to start teaching your child to eat and enjoy healthy foods. They look to you for guidance and what you teach, they will learn.