Tips and advice for healthy eating for toddlers
The toddler years are a key point for establishing lifelong healthy eating habits and a love of food. This makes it all the more stressful if your child starts to become a fussy eater! If your little one is going through a picky phase then read on.
Organix has launched its #LoveGoodFood campaign for toddlers, designed to help little ones love good food in these early years, so they grow up to be healthy, little food explorers.
Together with children’s food expert Lucy Thomas, and dietician Dr Frankie Phillips, they have put together their 'Little Book of Good Food – Toddlers & Families'. It’s packed with advice and tips for parents on providing a healthy diet for little ones. Download your free copy here.
Organix is also launching a series of Love Good Food short videos, with Lucy and a group of toddlers exploring, enjoying and sharing the wonderful world of fruit and vegetables, from broccoli to bananas, through play, rhymes, song and storytelling. You can watch them here: #lovegoodfood
Lucy has some great advice for encouraging your little ones to explore and enjoy fruit and veg:
Encourage a wider interest in food, without asking them to eat or taste anything. Get them to smell, kiss, lick or crunch. You can show your child how to smell strawberries and lick one to feel the bumpiness of the seeds on the outside.
Give them lots of opportunities to touch and handle fresh fruit and vegetables, whether out shopping, at home cooking or even growing food. This will help them be more relaxed and interested in food.
Get a little messy - let your little one squash a tomato or squeeze an orange while you are cooking. If they feel comfortable handling a food they are more likely to want to eat it.
Let your child explore different textures of food by juicing, blending, grating or mashing foods with your help.
Explore vegetables raw as well as cooked, it’s a great way to overcome a dislike of a vegetable. For example, small crunchy florets of cauliflower for dipping are delicious - and taste very different to cooked cauliflower.
Dr Frankie Phillips also has the following tips for giving young children a healthy diet:
Regular healthy meals and snacks – toddlers need to snack as their tummies aren’t big enough to take on board enough energy and nutrients from just three meals a day.
Plenty of choice and balance – a varied diet containing a selection of foods will provide the essential nutrients they need.
Each day aim for 5 portions of starchy foods, 5 portions of fruit and vegetables, 3 portions of dairy foods and 2 portions of meat, fish, eggs, nuts and pulses (3 if vegetarian).
Lots of tastes in a range of different fruit and vegetables.
Different colours, tastes and textures to add variety to the diet.
‘Me-sized’ portions. There’s no such thing as an ideal portion size for all children, as size, growth and physical activity levels vary.
Not adding extra sugar or salt – too much salt isn’t good for toddler’s kidneys and sugary food encourages a sweet tooth and can cause tooth decay.
Enough healthy drinks to keep them well-hydrated.
For lots more advice on toddler foods and tasty, healthy recipes for all the family please visit www.organix.com. To download a copy of The Organix Little Book of Good Food - Toddlers & Families visit www.organix.com/lovegoodfood and you can watch the Love Good Food video at: #lovegoodfood. Join the conversation at #LoveGoodFood.
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post.
