Thanks to my wonderful mother who spoils the crap out of her, my little Peanut has developed quite the taste for all foods junk related. She loves chips, cookies, ice cream, chocolate milk, and candy. While these foods are ok in moderation in my opinion, it has been quite a struggle to get her to like anything that is healthy for snacks during the day. So I have tried to be creative and disguise some healthier choices as junk food. For chips, we use baked vegetable straws made from spinach and beets. For cookies, chocolate flavored rice cakes. For candy, yogurt covered raisins. And for ice cream, I bought go-gurt tubes and freeze them. She now asks for "ice cream" every night and enjoys the cold yogurt treat. And for juice, I give her half water, half
V-8 fusion, the fruit and vegetable juice. While I know that these are not a substitute for fresh fruits and veggies, they are a great alternative to the junk food that is really bad for her. Does anyone else use any smart mommy tricks to get healthy food and snack into their kids? I would love to know.
It's actually for my husband!!! I puree cauliflower and put it in everything! You can do "buttered" noodles but use wacky mac, cauliflower, and some parm. It actually is yummy. This also isn't a snack, but I chop veggies into microscopic pieces and put it into all my dishes. I usually have carrots, zucchini, and squash in all my recipes. I was going to mention the go-gurt thing, but then you mentioned it. What a great idea! You can also make your own "popsicles" They have the containers to make them for a couple bucks at most. Then put watered down V8 splash, and some berries or other fruit slices in them, and freeze them. She will eat the fruit pieces along with the veggies.
ReplyDeleteDo you watch Disney channel at all? My kids will try absolutely anything that appears on "Tasty Time with ZeFronk," which is one of those 5-minute time fillers they put in around the shows. They have episodes available online too: http://tv.disney.go.com/playhouse/tastytimewithzefronk/ncds/recipes.html . Tomato Surprise was a big fave in our house (halved cherry tomatoes stuffed with cottage cheese, with rainbow sprinkles on top), and really good enough for grown ups too! (Might be a little more grown up with some fresh herbs or something instead of sprinkles) Sproutonline.com has a similar recipe section. Emma loves string cheese and those little babybell cheese wheels. I've heard great things about Jessica Seinfeld's cook book too (I have it, and don't think I've tried anything in it since veggies are big in our house- if you want to look at it let me know!). Love the go-gurt and cauliflower noodles ideas! Cauliflower is the one that neither kid is very interested in. I've found that just making the food look fun takes care of most of it- arrange things on the plate to look like butterflies or something, or offer frilly toothpicks to pick it up and eat. Emma loves skewering just about anything. Good luck!
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