Healthy Living: Superfoods for Kids

If there’s one thing Jennie and I are passionate about it’s what we feed the boys. We both felt that starting their foundation for healthy eating started with us, as parents, and we wanted to teach them the importance of making healthy food choices. We enjoyed making their baby food and not only was it cheaper, but much healthier because it was all fresh food without any additives or preservatives. It really doesn’t take much time and you can do many batches at once so it really isn’t something that is only feasible for the “SAHM“.

Our most recent topic of discussion is the amount of juice to give the boys, if any. I always try to remember that old saying, “start as you mean to go on”, and I’d like to see Luke drink water when he’s older so we drink plenty of it now. Sure, we get plenty of slack from other moms, friends and even our own parents at times. They all have their warnings: “they’ll go crazy for juice when they’re older, they’ll sneak it behind your back, what’s wrong with juice?” What have we learned about juice? We’ve learned:

• Most “juice drinks” are sugar water with flavorings and colorings. They would be better off drinking water or milk, which offers protein and healthier sugars.
• Even juice that is “100% juice” doesn’t offer a whole lot of nutrition. Juice is not crushed up fruit. It’s fruit with all the fiber removed. All that’s left is the water, the fruit sugar, and the vitamins (some of which are destroyed in the processing).
• Eating an apple or pear has tremendous nutritional value. You get fiber, vitamins, and carbs for energy. If you just drink the apple or pear juice without the fiber, you’re getting a lot of sugar with nothing to slow the absorption of these sugar carbs.
• It may be a “natural” sugar rush, but it’s still a sugar rush.
• As treats go, it’s a healthy one but not an everyday food.

Do you find as a parent that it is hard for others to be supportive of something you have chosen that’s different from what they are doing? We all have to make choices for our kids, and we each will choose different paths depending on what we feel is best for our families. We feel if you’re being respectful and sensitive enough not to try to change others minds in your own quest, why can’t we build each other up in support rather than tear each other down in criticism and judgements? It’s easy to feel like no one takes the time to try to understand where you’re coming from before judging. We are all guilty of this unfortunately.

Yes, we take nutrition seriously in our houses. The U.S. ranks #1 in the highest amount of obesity in the world. The amount of obese children in America has tripled in the last 30 years. The numbers speak for themselves and this is something that we can take into our own hands as parents. We can help shape young tastes and teach future generations about healthy eating. We can begin to change our relationship with food from being a “coping mechanism” to fueling our bodies with proper nutrition so our kids won’t suffer from diabetes, cardiovascular disease and depression to name a few. We’re not claiming to know it all and we’ve never really scrutinized our nutrition until having our boys. We eat things every day that we shouldn’t be eating and we just try to do better the next day.  We certainly are NO experts, but we do want to share with you what we’ve learned so far along our journey and how it’s helped us as adults get healthier too! We would love to hear your food suggestions and ideas for healthy living!

One of our favorite books for healthy nutrition for kids is called, “The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood” by Dr. Sears. There is so much great information in this book, including how to teach your kids to go through the grocery store with you and make healthy food choices. There is also a lot of great info we read about fruit juice and how it’s important for some foods to be moderated. What we found particularly useful was the Top Twelve list of super foods for kids!

• Salmon
• Blueberries
• Spinach
• Nuts
• Eggs
• Tofu
• Yogurt
• Avocados
• Oatmeal
• Flax seeds
• Beans
• Tomatoes

If you’re looking for a fun way to get your kids involved with healthy additives, try this fun way to shape your toddler’s tastes! Grind nuts and seeds in a grinder for about 10 seconds and let the kids sprinkle it on anything! Try these healthy sprinkle choices:

• Flax seed meal
• Cinnamon (for sweet)
• Turmeric (for savory)
• Ground almonds (call it crunchies)
• Ground sunflower seeds
• Fresh lemon or lime juice
• Lemon peel
• Ginger

This book has an entire chapter devoted to the Top Twelve Superfoods for Kids with more details about each superfood, see below on how to get your own copy!