How can you encourage your kids to love healthy foods?

Recent literature finds British school children lacking in micronutrients essential for maintaining optimal health and preventing illness and disease (E. Weichselbaum and J. L. Buttriss pages 9–73, March 2014). 

This really worries me, as our baby boomers (60 within the last/next few years), most of whom started life with more natural fare and significantly less processed foods, are set to live longer than any other generation. This is more and more unlikely to happen for our younger generation. There is a huge lack of awareness when it comes to consuming processed foods and energy drinks. Just looking at a long list of ingredients many of us can not even pronounce on a food label, should have us running a mile but this is not always the case. An example of this is energy drinks (this includes sports drinks). Young people are being blind sighted by expensive marketing, advertising and cleverly designed packaging. Busy parents are giving in to the formidable pester power of their precious angels who they find it hard to say no to.

Is it possible to eat healthy on a low income?

Statistics show the lower the family income in the UK, the lower the consumption of fruits and vegetables. There are contrasting views on this, but my view is that with the changes in lifestyle in the last 60 years i.e. women going out to work post war, food manufacturers are making more and more convenience foods to meet consumer demand, there is a lack of nutritional education in schools and in medical training. It is easy to see how we have forgotten how to be creative, and even why it is important that we should even want to eat healthy and natural foods.

It is not as difficult as we sometimes think to eat healthy on a low budget, it just takes a little more thought. However the pleasure from making natural foods and feeding them to your family far outweighs the process of getting in to good habits. That is exactly what it is about, getting in to these good habits. I often say if you only have healthy ingredients in the house, you can only make nutritious food.

Keeping it simple

Keep it simple and introduce a new meal over a week or two. Having 5 to 7 meals you can go to, and plan to make each week can help you create a shopping list and stick to it. If you do not usually cook without jars, try a basic tomato sauce first, served with couscous, wholemeal/spelt pasta or quinoa, then progress to a curry. You will be surprised just how quick it is to cook these things from scratch. If you are really short on time on week days, chop your onions, chilli, garlic etc. and bag them up in portions store in the freezer and just take them out and place straight in the pan (no need to defrost).

How can we encourage healthy eating?

Get children cooking!

Encourage even the youngest toddlers to mix up foods, add spices etc. whilst your cooking. Talk about fruits and vegetables you are preparing and as they get older let them help with peeling etc. Being part of the cooking process will allow your child to feel part of something special and support a healthy self esteem, not to mention the quality bonding time you have together. This, of course, is not always possible when your busily preparing the quickest meal you can after working all day. Make sure you choose a day when you are not rushed and you can be patient.

You can try growing foods with your children, starting with herbs and tomatoes etc. in pots. Planting, growing and eating gives your children a fun experience eating natural unprocessed food, packed with nutrients. Also get them adding fruits and veggies to a blender to make smoothies.

Eat together

There is a huge body of evidence to show that eating with your children improves their self esteem, their ability to communicate with people and may even improve their school performance. Again this is not always possible every evening and should not give you a sense of guilt. However, even if children can eat with one parent at least a few nights a week this will make a huge difference. Make eating together a good experience. It is good to introduce rules around meal times e.g. no phones or any other distractions.

Have these in your cupboard to add flavour…

Sweet, sour, bitter, umami, salt are all receptors on your tongue, hit all of these and you have a successful meal. The flavours below can be added to any meat, fish or vegetables you choose. 

• olive oil (good for sautéing (frying off) onion or salad dressing)
• lemons/limes 
• garlic and onion - a start to any vegetable dish, frying off in a little olive oil, then add any meat or vegetables you like and you have a meal!
• sea salt (we should not add salt to any foods for children under 2, however if you are not eating processed foods, a pinch of sea salt can balance flavours of tomatoes sauces etc.)
• extra options: fresh chilli, ginger and vanilla extract/vanilla pods
• spices: cumin, ground coriander, turmeric, garam masala, cardamom pods

Have these dry staples in your cupboards… 

• wholemeal/spelt pasta
• quinoa
• brown rice
• oats
• red lentils

Bake sweet snacks for packed lunches or a weekend treat your children will love.

It is so easy to make your children a natural energy bar to add to their packed lunch rather than the highly processed snacks that have a huge amount of hidden sugar.

This energy bar recipe is my children's favourite and you can alter the recipe depending on which ingredients you have in the cupboard.

Energy bar recipe:
makes 12-16 portions

180g oats
20g unsweetened coconut
50g dried fruit (raisins, sultanas, dried cranberries or apricots)
100g honey/rice malt syrup
50g butter/olive oil
20g mixed seeds (use any of the following: pumpkin, poppy, sunflower, chia)
optional: tsp of cinnamon

note: see the method in the blogs natural bake section

The second recipe is a very easy cake recipe that your children will love, my girls love making it, and eating it! Again this recipe can be altered, by adding orange or lemon zest, cacao, cinnamon etc. My children love the basic vanilla sponge. I have added a chocolate greek yoghurt cream that can be served with this on the natural bakes recipe page.

Almond cake recipe (contains nuts):
serves 8

200g ground almonds/almond flour

4 eggs

85g butter and a little for greasing the baking tin.

1 tsp of baking powder

70g sugar/honey
vanilla extract/seeds
Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees celsius for 30 minutes

Whisk eggs, butter, vanilla and sugar (or melted honey and butter)
Fold in the rest of the ingredients with a metal spoon.
Pour the mixture into a greased tin1 tsp of vanilla extract/vanilla seeds

Enjoy your food, and your children will too. If you have a child who is quite fussy and avoids vegetables. Don't worry some children have a sensitivity to bitter tastes, and this will lessen as they get older. Always encourage your children to try new foods, but never force them to eat everything. Try offering small amounts of foods to small appetites as they can always have more.

As always if you have any questions or comments please use the comments or email us on ak.joidevivre@gmail.com.

Love

Kelly x