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Connect Your Kids to Healthy Snacks

Today, so many different types of deliciously tempting treats and snacks exist that it is virtually impossible to keep our kids away from them. Even if you avoid bringing them home, these snacks are available almost everywhere your child frequents. From school parties to a friend’s birthday party to scout camp to the movie theater to award ceremonies, chips, cookies, and candy prevail.

Overly high in salt, sugar, and food additives, today’s processed snack foods are certainly not healthy even if they do taste good. Just exactly how can someone encourage her children to eat more healthy snacks and fewer unhealthy snacks? While this encouragement should begin during a child’s early years, there are ways to encourage the inclusion of healthier snacks in the daily eating routine.

• Start off by purchasing small, snack size plastic bags with the zipper closure. The portions of healthy treats that can be placed in them are small enough to be tempting without being large enough to be daunting. Plus, the zipper closure prevents the food from accidentally falling out and creating a mess that no child wants to clean up.

• Make healthy snacks easily accessible for your children. No hungry child wants to wash, peel, or cut fresh fruit or vegetables. Purchase ready to eat vegetables and fruits.

• Keep the fruits and vegetables at eye level for your children so that this is the first thing that they see when they open the refrigerator.

• Incorporate raw fruits and vegetables into family meals, especially meals that are on the go. If the children see mom and dad readily eating healthy treats, they are more likely to do so. Eating healthy food no longer appears to be a means of preventing them from enjoying “junk food,” but rather, it appears to be a normal part of the entire family’s eating routine.

• Jazz it up. Use sharp cookie cutters or paring knives to carve shapes onto the vegetables and fruits for a novel change that brings new interest with it.

• Have some fun with it. Take a week, assign each day a letter or two from the alphabet, and serve fruits and vegetables that begin with that letter.

• Serve it anyway. If your child insists that she does not want raw fruits and vegetables at a party, put out a small assortment of creative vegetable treats.

Use some imagination and come up with some of your own ideas to incorporate more vegetables and fruits into your child’s diet. Ask your child for ideas and help. After all, how many of us taste a little bit here and a little bit there as we prepare and set up food?

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Homemade Baby Food – Healthier and Less Costly

Eating solid foods is an important step in your baby’s development. When starting your baby on new foods, you will want to make sure baby gets all the nutrients he needs without unnecessary sugars, salt and additives. While many processed baby foods are good, making your own baby food can be an even healthier alternative. It is also more cost-efficient, considering you can make baby food out of the same foods you or your other children are already eating.

Babies who eat nutritious foods early in life are more likely to grow up stronger and be better-adjusted eaters than those who eat a poor diet. By making your own food for baby, you have the benefits of increasing nutritional value, eliminating unnecessary additives, ensuring freshness, offering variety and eliminating high costs.

Increased Nutrients

Babies need vitamins and nutrients to grow up healthy. Processed foods add water, sugars and starchy fillers that dilute the nutritional value of the food your baby is eating. Companies cook foods at high temperatures to kill bacteria to store in jars at room temperature, but this process can also eliminate important vitamins and nutrients. These are then added back artificially. By making your own food for baby, you cook and serve immediately, (or freeze for later), saving the important nutrients and vitamins for baby to eat.

Eliminating Unnecessary Additives

Processed foods add ingredients such as sugars, butter and salt to flavor their foods. These additives are neither necessary nor good for your baby’s health. Healthcare professionals actually recommend that you avoid these additives in babies’ food to reduce the chance of obesity in later years. Making your own foods from fresh ingredients assures you that your baby will have only the ingredients that baby needs.

Ensure Freshness

When you cook and mash peas for your baby; that is all your baby is getting – fresh, cooked peas. The peas actually look and taste like peas, unlike the peas you find in baby food jars that smell and taste different. Serving your baby fresh foods now will help baby be more open to new tastes later in life.

Variety

Most processed baby foods come in varieties that are only popular to the consumer. This limits the types of foods you can serve to your baby. By making your own baby food, your baby can actually eat almost everything you do, except in a more cooked and mashed form. Serving variety at a young age can increase your babies’ desire to eat more variety when she is older.

Cost Efficient

People who make their own baby food save between $250 and $500 a year. What could be easier than making your baby food from foods you are already buying to feed the rest of the family? No added purchases and no annoying jars or cans stacked in the cupboard. Baby can simply eat cooked and mashed versions of what you are already serving.

Making Your Own Baby Food

With all these benefits, you might want to try to make your own baby food. But, where do you start? Making your own baby food is actually simple. You can either make it out of the foods you are serving your family or prepare the food ahead of time and freeze for later. Here are some basic tips:

Fruits and Vegetables

Purchase only fresh fruits and vegetables; organic is even better to eliminate chemicals. If fresh are not available, frozen or canned will do but make sure to purchase the “no salt” variety. Wash food thoroughly. Peal foods with skin, such as potatoes, apples, pears, etc. Steam or boil until food is soft and mushy. Puree in a blender or food processor until creamy. For older babies who chew, you can leave more texture to the food. For sweet potatoes or mashed potatoes, mix with a little formula or breast milk. Bananas are easy – just mash and serve. Your food is now ready to serve.

Meats

Older babies can begin eating meats that have been cooked thoroughly and pureed. Suggested meats are chicken and ham.

Freeze for Later

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Start A Neighborhood Cooking Club

A fun new way socialize with neighborhood friends is the creation of neighborhood cooking clubs. The purpose of the clubs is to bring people together for a day of cooking and camaraderie. The plan is simple: prepare dishes that can be made or frozen for the participant’s families. The trick is to make sure that you have enough crock-pots and stove burners to accommodate your group.

If you have decided to kick off a cooking club it will be best to enlist one or two friends to help you with the endeavor. First things first- decide on the dishes that you will want to make. Many cooking clubs either choose to do several casserole dishes or several simple meals that can be easily assembled.

After you have chosen the recipes, you will need to purchase and assemble the ingredients

You have two choices here- either one person purchases all of the ingredients and then divides the bill up among the participants or assign ingredients to the participants and try to divide it up by approximate cost.

Before the day of the cooking club meeting remind participants to bring an apron, a kitchen timer, favorite cooking utensils and containers to bring their food home in. Many people choose to use disposable plastic containers or zippered plastic bags to transport their food. It may also be a good idea to remind people before the day of the cooking party of their grocery list if you’ve assigned them one to make sure they have purchased all of the necessary ingredients.

The big day of your first cooking club meeting may seem a little hectic but if you divide the cooking assignments among the participants you will find things will run smoothly. Start by cooking the things that need the longest to cook first then plan accordingly with the dishes that take the least time. Be sure to designate an area for cleaning fruits and vegetables and a separate area for chopping and cutting meats to prevent the spread of food bacteria. It is also important to provide your guests with plenty of paper towels and antibacterial kitchen wipes to help clean up the messes that are bound to occur.

Timing the cooking food is crucial for the success of each recipe

Each person should be in charge of the cooking time of his or her recipe. Then, as each food item is completed it should be removed to a counter or table on which to cool. Once all of the food has cooled everyone will need to gather his or her containers for the food distribution. It usually works best to divide one dish at a time so that the food can be distributed evenly.

Many cooking clubs take off in neighborhoods and they can quickly multiply. Offshoots of the cooking clubs may decide to focus only on one-dish meals or crock-pot dishes while others may decide to experiment with exotic epicurean delights or cultural specialties. No matter which avenue your cooking club decides on it is sure to be a hit with the participants. Not only will your friends have fun cooking and socializing but they will have plenty of food to take home for their families to enjoy as well.

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The Way to their Heart is Through Their Stomachs

I am a modern woman: I am 23 years old and I only know how to cook one dish: homemade spaghetti. Spaghetti is the only main course recipe that my mother taught me, and therefore I cherish it. I have improved upon it and made it own. While I get “warm fuzzies” just thinking about it, I wish that I knew more about the kitchen in general, and I wish I knew many more of my mother’s recipes. My own lack of kitchen experience leads me to believe that the kitchen has become a part of our home that is less frequented, isolated and even neglected. Below are just some of the reasons why reestablishing the kitchen as a central part of the home is growing in importance.

Why the Kitchen is Important

Introducing children and teenagers to the kitchen is important for two reasons. As stated above, I know how to cook one entrée: spaghetti. That’s it. Now, while many people eat every meal out, this can be unhealthy and economically taxing. Cooking can be enjoyable for both the girls and the guys, but how will they know that if they never enter the kitchen? Cooking is a skill and an art that people can take pleasure in, and that can help keep people healthy and save money.

In addition, the kitchen can become a great gathering place where family can reconnect and grow together. While it may seem archaic, there is something to be said for dinners spent around the kitchen table as opposed to in front of the television. Eating together promotes interest among family members and conversation. When the whole family takes part in creating the meal, the dinner itself is more enjoyable.

When to Start and How to Keep it Going

One of the best ways to get children into the kitchen is to make it fun and let them help. Choose tasks that are safe. Don’t worry about messes. In fact, letting them make messes leads to another important life lesson: cleaning up messes!

While it’s often easy to keep children’s interest, once they turn 13, this often changes. They have more school work to do, they have to talk to their friends on the phone, they have to chat on IM, they often spend times looking movies at sites like 123movies etc. Urge your children to do their homework at the kitchen table while you cook dinner so that you can chat with them between math problems.

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Valentine's Day Sweets

Whether you have to provide a snack for your children at school or you just want to have fun cooking, Valentine's Day is the perfect holiday for making sweets!

My family has a tradition of making shortbread cookies for Valentine's Day because the recipe is incredibly easy. The basic recipe is as follows:

1 cup of softened salted butter ½ cup of granulated sugar 2 ½ cups of sifted all-purpose flour

Cream the butter and sugar together with a blender until light and fluffy. Add flour at slow speed until blended and a pea-like consistency. Divide the dough in half and roll into balls. Flatten the balls, wrap in plastic wrap and chill. Once the dough is chilled for at least 1 hour, preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured board until it is 1/3 inch thick. Use a variety of heart, cupid or alphabet letters to cut out the cookies. Place on a greased cookie sheet or use a Silpat liner so the cookies will slide off easily. Cook 20 to 25 minutes until they are a light golden color. Cool completely.

Children love to decorate these cookies

Purchase a variety of colored sugars and cake decorations. Retail stores that carry Wilton baking supplies have a great variety of Valentine's Day decorating supplies. Vanilla icing tastes best on these cookies; don't be afraid to use food coloring to create various shades of pink and red for your culinary creations. Let your creativity flow!

Another fun family project is making chocolate candies and lollipops. Kits for these chocolates can be found in many retail and grocery stores. Since this project is a little more time consuming, it is best suited for older children. Purchase several of each type of candy mold as it will speed up the process. This is important if you are making these sweets for a large group of people! I have also found it is easier to make these chocolates by using the squeeze bottle containers that are sold along side of the molds. The squeeze bottles are designed to be used in the microwave and make the process of melting chocolate wafers much quicker. Choose a variety of chocolate wafers for your project; remember not everyone can eat milk chocolate so be sure to pick up some white chocolate wafers as well.

Presentation is an important part of the package, so be sure to buy wrappers befitting your Valentine's Day creations

Cute cellophane bags and matching ties can be found in many baking or candy making areas of your favorite store. If your child is taking the desserts to school try packaging them in a sturdy container, especially if your child rides on a bus. Decorate a large shoebox with pink construction paper and cute Valentine's Day stickers. Place the decorated box in a plastic shopping bag and secure it length-wise and width wise with large rubber bands. Instruct your child to carry it level, especially if they are carrying the decorated cookies.

Lollipops or other chocolates can make a trek to school or a party when carried in a picnic basket lined with a new red-gingham dishtowel

For added security you can use a wire twist-tie to keep the basket securely shut until it gets to school or a party. Be sure to remind your child that the chocolates can melt easily so be sure to keep them away from any heaters.

Try one of these easy and inexpensive treats for your next party or school snack. Your children will enjoy making them, and you may just start a family tradition!