Parenting and looking after young children, can be a challenging task, especially when it comes to feeding them healthy food when ‘junk food’ is often a popular trend. Which child would prefer eating mashed peaches when there’s delicious chocolate to be had? Or who would eat their veggies when Nutella sandwiches seem like a much a better option?
A healthy, well-balanced diet is important for growing children because proper nutrition is crucial for organs and tissues to work properly. If a child’s diet is made up mostly of junk food, they can end up suffering from fatigue, poor performance, and even risk getting dangerous sicknesses. So, how can you bridge the gap between these improper eating habits and impress the children in your care with delicious healthy snacks for a well-balanced diet? Let’s take a look:
Pre-packaged and processed food has become quite the staple content of our diets over the years – so much so that it’s now often considered ‘unimaginable’ to go without it. Children especially, love processed cookies, not understanding what a health-risk they could be. But you can easily rectify this problem by home-baking healthy cookies using the right ingredients. You can replace pastry flour with brown or white flour, add rolled oats for more fibre, and replace butter with apple sauce to make them more nutritious. And children will love a serving of these cookies when the munchies hit.
Children can develop a general susceptibility to heart disease if they’re not provided with a healthy diet. So there’s no better moment than now to start them on a heart-healthy lifestyle. Carrot sticks are the perfect snack to munch on when craving something crunchy and semi-sweet. They’re the perfect source of vitamins, are rich in beta-carotene, and contain many minerals. It’s the perfect nutrition-filled snack for children to enjoy. Carrot sticks are also easy to serve and good to have ‘on-the-go’.
As healthy as they are though, it’s not always easy to get babies to eat this small, healthy snack. It has been proven that serving food from an ‘inviting’ container can increase the chances of success when feeding babies. Uber Kids can help with its “Hippychick For Little Fingers Dinner Set”: a very nice dinner set designed to entice the child to eat. If you’d like to see for yourself, you can use an Uber Kids discount code, which allows you to save money on the purchase. So no more excuses for not getting babies to try this super vitamin snack!
Yes, peanut butter does have a high calorie and fat count, but as long as you opt for the natural version over the regular one, you’re good to go. Coupled with the high nutritional value and iron-rich intake of apples, an apple and peanut butter sandwich can be your children’s next favorite snack. All you need is 2 tablespoons of peanut butter and crisp apple slices, all packed in bread, and your children will fall in love with this quick, healthy-eating hack.
Fruits are a healthy-diet staple, but most children these days prefer cupcakes and biscuits instead of natural-fibre fruits. Here’s the perfect way to reintroduce them in a healthy way: by opting for fruit smoothies. The trick to making these appealing, is to add just a dash of their favourite things in the mix. A fruit and chocolate smoothie is not as unconventional as it used to be. Similarly, you can even make vegetable smoothies by hiding any bitter flavours from the vegetables, with naturally-sweet, fruity ones.
Mass-produced and sugar-laden ice-cream is one of the unhealthiest dietary choices that contemporary children can go for. However, the enchantment of delicious, frozen, sweet goodness is too much for many. But you can break this bad habit by making healthy, homemade popsicles to satisfy your children’s sweet-tooth. While the frozen-lemonade hack is tried-and-true, you can also go for fruit-based concoctions. You can use a fruit pulp and zest of your liking, substitute sugar with honey, and opt for 0% fat, Greek yoghurt to create a delicious, homemade frozen treat of your own.
Tomatoes contain the antioxidant, lycopene, which is said to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer. Similarly, avocados are rich in around 20 vitamins and minerals. But children these days may not really like either of these nutrient-dense foods as they are. So how about creating a delicious snack out of them? ‘Tomato and avocado melt’ is a yummy snack reminiscent of the universally-beloved pizza, which every child seems automatically to like. With it, you can help them ingest lots of nutrients without compromising the taste.
If children judge their food by the way it looks, then they’ll definitely fall in love with the citrus fruit salad. Comprising juicy winter fruits and garnished with blueberries, these fruit salads are all rich in antioxidants, vitamin C, and fibre – all necessary components of a healthy, well-balanced diet for growing children. Plus, the colour and texture will definitely keep everyone interested!
Healthy snacking and exercise habits are crucial to children’s lifestyles. We hope this list of snacks appeals to the children’s’ taste and leaves them wanting more!