10 Awesome Food Tips for Kids

March is National Nutrition Month and I was asked by Chobani^® to give some tips for getting kids to eat healthy.  Chobani has a new line of kid friendly products that they feel will contribute to kids eating healthy foods. 

photo source Chobani LLC

In honor of National Nutrition Month this March the Chobani - #ChobaniKids project is kicking off 2015 with the introduction of Chobani Tots and Chobani Kids Greek Yogurt Pouches, specially designed Greek Yogurt for toddlers and kids that contains real fruits and vegetables. This is great for grab and go nutrition and to add to lunch boxes.  

Try Chobani^® Greek yogurt

• Only natural ingredients that are not genetically modified (non-GMO)
• No artificial flavors or sweeteners
• No preservatives
• Made with milk from cows not treated with hormones like rBST*
• Includes live & active cultures
• Three types of probiotics
• Gluten free
• Kosher certified
• Vegetarian friendly
• Less than 5% lactose

NOTE:  The Chobani Kids products aren't available in Canada at this time. 

Here are some 10 Awesome Food Tips for getting your kids to eat healthy food.

Recently I helped my fellow Food Revolution Day Ambassador Mardi with her Cooking with Kids Class at the school she teaches at.  Myself and fellow Ambassador Carol were along for the ride to help with the demos and take photos in my case.   Some appear here.  The kids helped make a Vegetable soup, a vegetable slaw wrap and 4 different smoothies.  They all loved it and some of the tips here are some of the things we did at the class.

1.  Try a new fruit or vegetable every week.  This will develop your child's palate and will prevent you and your family from getting bored eating the same things all the time.   For help you can follow Jennifer Tyler Lee's Crunchacolor's 52 New Foods Challenge and follow along with the book and try new things.

2.  Make your food look fun, even if you have to dress it up a bit.  Play with your food and make it look like something you want to eat.  Also you can hide vegetables in things like this savoury Korean style pancake.  A friend started making pumpkin pancakes for her picky child.  Lot's of people blend tons of vegetables into tomato sauces to hide them and kids don't even notice.  

3. Try the same fruit or vegetable in different ways.  Sometimes it's a texture thing that kids don't like not necessarily the vegetable.  Keep trying because sometimes it takes a few times before kids will like it.  Here I boiled some whole Edamame and sprinkled with sesame oil and sesame seeds and salt.  I also took a bag of frozen shelled edamame and turned it into an Edamame hummus.  Just swap the chickpeas for the edamame to change it up.

4.  Make it easy to add extra nutrition into your day.  Grab an Orange or zest or juice some Citrus fruit into water and you can even freeze ice cubes with juices and pop them into water for flavour and to keep them cold.

5.  Grab and Go food.  Have things like celery sticks, carrot sticks, dips, a fruit bowl ready to grab in your refrigerator so that when kids come home from school or you get home from work and are starving you can just grab something quick that will still be healthy.

6.  Get your tools ready and get your kids in the kitchen.  Kids can be your sous chef in the kitchen and help you grate or peel vegetables or they can stir things and as they get older you can teach them how to cut vegetables and measure ingredients.  They learn different skills and they take ownership of what they are eating and will develop pride in helping to make the meals.

7. Get your blender out of the corner and fire it up and get the kids to help make smoothies, soups, dressings and dips.  They can toss it all in and press the button and see what happens.  It's also a good way to get loads of fruits and vegetable into one meal.

8.  Plant some fresh vegetables or a Herb Garden and let kids water it so that they can appreciate where there food comes from and know exactly what it is and feel like they contributed to growing food for the family.  Gardening is a great way to teach kids about taking care of the earth and also is said to relieve stress.  It also sets up your kids with a skill for life.  They know they can grow their own foods and control what they are eating. 

9.   Think GLOBAL but eat LOCAL - GLOCAL.  Think outside of your regular eating habits and get kids inspired by the foods of other cultures.  When I was a kid my mom would bring me to a yearly event called Caravan which was held in churches and community centres.  Each location had a different culture featured.  At the Jerusalem pavillion they featured Fallafels which was the first time I ever had a fallafel and it inspired me to make my own version at home.

I also watched Cooking shows on TV and learned how to make Chinese Food from watching Yan Can Cook.

If you can afford to travel to different countries try and find out what the local people eat and have kids try different things.   Think Globally by investing in different spices that will flavour your dishes with the different spices used in different countries.

10.  If your kids like certain fast food that isn't too healthy then try and find a way to make it at home a healthier way like making these chicken nuggets.  You can add things like lemon zest, chopped herbs, whole grain bread crumbs and you can even coat them in yoghurt and then bread them.  You can bake them in the oven or pan fry them quickly and serve them with a healthy dipping sauce like an herb yoghurt or a tomato sauce.

Disclaimer:  I was not compensated for this post although information for Chobani products was provided by Chobani.  All other opinions are my own.