Tuesday, 27 February 2007

How do you get kids interested in healthy food

A thread on UKScrappers has just inspired me to write this.

How do you get kids interested in eating healthy food?

Get them helping make pizzas. If you have a breadmaker, use the dough setting, chuck in the ingredients on timer if necessary so the dough is ready when they come home from school. Let them make the tomato sauce, really easy, onion finely chopped, fry until golden, add tinned chopped tomatoes salt & pepper to taste. Provide lots of lovely toppings and get them to make their own pizza. If you want to make the tomato sauce yourself, you can blitz in some carrots etc so they don't see them.

Involve the children in the cooking, when they are chopping the veg, steal and eat bits of raw carrot, celery, cucumber etc, core from cauliflower/cabbage, celeriac, swede.

Get them growing some of their own food, radishes, carrots, lettuce, they will love growing then eating them fresh. Pop in some peas, I never expected to get a meal, I let my DD graze on the produce in the garden, there's nothing like seeing them think they are being naughty picking a pod of peas and eating them straight from the pod.

How many times were we caught nicking chocolate, icecream etc, and felt wicked doing it, do the same with veg, my DD eats anything now. Nick the healthy stuff and they will too, hee hee, easy way to get the good stuff into them.

Also how about getting a children's cookery book, or simple cookery book, let them pick a new recipe each week, they take it in turns and cook together, they make the shopping list, help you shop for the ingredients choosing what they need, then cook it themselves, with your help. Let them make a mess, it doesn't matter, but boost their confidence in the kitchen, can't make the same dish twice, the good ones get added to your like list and can go into the normal cooking during the week. I used to do this with my mum and it was brilliant fun.

I used to make a lovely English curry from a 101 recipe book by Good Housekeeping, that involved onion, chopped apple, sultanas.

If you see an offer for cheap fruit get them making jam with you, great to have on some bread. No preservatives and so easy.

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