A lot of people feel that getting their children to eat healthy foods
is an almost impossible task, but in many cases, it’s because of
the poor eating habits they’ve adopted earlier. Getting a child
from chicken strips and burgers to artichoke and broccoli is a lot
tougher than starting them on healthy food when they’re still
young. There are also ways that you can gradually add healthy
elements in their diets until they eventually start embracing healthy
foods. Let’s take a look at how you can instil a love of healthy
food into your children.
Make Healthy Food More Attractive
If you’re going to be serving healthy food to children, you have to
make it interesting. A child might not want to eat steamed
vegetables, for instance, but they will jump at them if they are
grilled on a skewer.
Children will also love veggies with a dip in most cases, but the
issue there is that they can get very high in fat and generally
unhealthy. There are tons of healthy alternatives, however. Instead
of going for cream or mayonnaise-based dips, you could go for
yogurt-based dips like tzatziki, for instance. Children will not see
the difference, and will learn to love healthy dips as a result.
Teach them How to Cook
Another thing you should do is get them involved in cooking and teach
them how to cook healthy. But you have to make sure that the recipes
are delicious, or else you’ll turn them off healthy food.
Services like compasscooks.com,
for instance, have a membership club where children get a bunch of
recipes they can try each month, complete with instructions and the
spices needed to make them. The recipes are healthy, and will get
your child into cooking. They could discover a passion for both
cooking and healthy food at the same time.
Introduce them to Healthy Versions of Favourite Foods
We often see certain foods as unhealthy, but there’s usually a way
to make them healthier. If you introduce them to these alternatives,
they might be more open to the idea of eating healthy later on. At
the very least, you’ll be able to get them to eat healthily without
them realising.
Things like pizza, for instance, can be made healthier in a wide
number of ways. The main culprits when it comes to pizza are the
cheese and dough, and there are tons of ways that you can make these
healthier.
Just switching to a thin crust would make a world of difference, but
if you’re feeling adventurous, you can always learn how to make a
cauliflower
crust. You can also switch to low-fat cheese or just
use less. Sauces can be a great conduit for all sorts of veggies as
well, so don’t stick to tomatoes only and find great veggies with a
diverse nutritional profile and incorporate them into the sauce.
Instilling a love of healthy food is one thing that has to be done
early if you want it to be as easy as possible. That doesn’t mean
that you should give up if your children have bad habits, you’ll
just need to be more creative.
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