If, in a five-minute tea break sometime, you happened to google “What should I be feeding my kids?” you may well have ended up feeling guilty, overwhelmed and confused by the conflicting nature of ‘expert’ opinion (meat/no meat, fat/low fat, protein but not too much… etc). As part of my regular talks ‘Super Power your Kids’ I explore some of that information in more detail and we ditch the guilt for starters. But for now, let’s look at some healthy snack ideas as a means to super charge our kids!
Evidence suggests that the more fruit and vegetables you eat, the healthier you are.
Amazingly – 7 portions of fruit and vegetables (5 vegetables, 2 fruit) a day lowers your risks of death from any disease by 42%. Even just eating between 1-3 portions reduces your risk by 14% (1).
Now, we are rightly sceptical of statistics of any kind. But those are extraordinary figures. Not many (any?) drugs can claim such benefits. Unfortunately, there is also evidence suggesting 80% of young people eat less than 5 portions a day (2). Equally a significant number of children suffer from an inadequate supply of many vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids (3). The good news is that it is easy and inexpensive to increase your child’s supply of all the above.
Note: Try to provide a rainbow of coloured foods because each colour represents a different health boosting property (e.g. red equals anti-oxidant, green equals anti-toxic) and organic when possible.
Savoury Snacks (not for kids at risk of choking from nuts/hard food)
- Oatcake/Buckwheat cracker with hummus, guacamole, cottage cheese
- Raw vegetable kebab/batons (e.g. carrot, red pepper and mange tout, cucumber) with above dips
- Boiled egg with above dips
- Small bowl of mixed nuts (try introducing walnuts/brazil nuts as well as cashews and almonds) with red grapes/chopped apples
- Gluten free pizza base with home-made vegetable topping (grated under cheese to hide if necessary!)
- Rice cakes with salmon and avocado
Bought Treats
- Naked Bar (nuts/date bars)
- Bounce (oats balls with added protein/spirulina)
- Smooze fruit ice (coconut milk/cream and natural fruit, cane sugar)
- Chia Pod (chia seeds soaked with coconut milk/cinnamon/mango)
- Organix Goodies range (oat bars sweetened with fruit juice)
This is a very easy healthy pancake – substituting normal flour for half Doves Farm gluten free flour and half buckwheat flour and then filling it with all sorts of healthy berries, sprouted lentils, avocado, coconut cream and a home-made choc spread (recipe coming soon!).
See other recipe pages for healthy treats.
If you would like to book me to do a talk at your school/community group please get in touch.
Sources:
(1)http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2014/03/03/jech-2013-203500
(3) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-3010.2011.01910.x/full
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