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Exciting Nutrition for kids

Stuck on ideas for how to get your kids excited about healthy eating? This article will give you a few ideas on how to get them involved.

In recent research, it was shown that only 42% of kids under 12 are getting their recommended daily intake of 5 fruit and/or vegetable portions a day. For parents it can be hard and at times frustrating to persuade the kids to eat their greens or have an apple instead of a packet of crisps, so here are just a few ideas to make increasing their fruit and veg portions more appealing.

Fruit skewers – Involve the kids in the preparation and selection of making fruit kebabs on wooden skewers, it will make them enthusiastic and they will feel more excited to eat them because of the time and effort they put in. A few ideas for these skewers could be pineapple cut into bite-size chunks, with strawberries sliced in half and wedges of apples or oranges, try and be creative with the ideas and change them every now and then as the kids will enjoy them every time. The more different colours used the better!

Smoothies – Smoothies are a delicious and fun way fir the kids to get more fruit and veg inside them and with smoothies it is easy to incorporate some vegetables they wouldn’t usually want to eat. For a base of the smoothie you could use bananas with either water or some plain natural yoghurt, and then add a few more fruits like apples or grapes. It will be easy to incorporate the vegetables because of the sweetness of the fruit means the mild flavours from vegetables such as broccoli and spinach will go undetected.

Another variation of making smoothies is making fruit juices by using a juicer. They taste great and fresh and go towards the 5 a day count. Again vegetables can be incorporated into the fruit juices and go undetected.

Cutting different shapes with fruits and vegetables may also excite kids about eating more of them, for example making stars out apple slices is an inventive way and you can make stories with your shapes to entertain them.

By doing these methods your children will be getting essential vitamins they need to thrive in the day, they’ll also get used to eating them regularly and become familiar with the many different and delicious fruits and vegetable available.

A reward chart could be established so when they complete their amounts of fruits and veg you feel is appropriate they could for instance, go for a family activity out or play with their favourite toys.

Article written by: Dean Carinci

Date: 06.05.2010