Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Healthy snacks for kids - Make your own pizza

healthy snacks for kids would like to show you another post on what we had for dinner. Its not a healthy snacks for kids idea more of a healthy dinner idea for kids and adults :).

For the base of the pizza we used pitta bread, but you can use whatever base you want really.

Ontop of the base we put a layer of tomota paste. Then we spread some shredded ham ontop you can put chicken, salami or anything that takes your fancy really. We then put some sliced mushrooms and then luke helped to put some pineapple which was surprising due to him trying to eat them all :)

He was really interested in helping and thought it was lots of fun.

After cooking my pizza on my special pizza stone which was pre heated in the oven for 20mins, it was time to put it to the big test. Luke manged to get it on his fork ok which is a good start.


This piece is quite big i wonder if it will fit in my mouth....



Yeah this tasts good. Mission accomplished, luke is eating some healthy food. i would say this is a healthy snacks for kids success :)



So this pizza of course could be complelty a veggie pizza which would make it much more healthy but at least its a start and he ate it all up. By making your own food at least you know what is going into it and can make it as healthy as possible.

The big thing we have been finding lately is getting luke involved in preparing meals. The more he is involved the more he wants to eat it and the more interested he is in eating healthy snacks.

i've actually come across an excellant website that has tons of menu idea's i highly recomend checking it out. It has really helped me a lot in planing my meals. Great if your after healthy snacks for kids ideas Click here to find out more info

Healthful Snacks For Kids

Now days, more than ever children should be eating healthier. For millions of children in America consuming junk food and increased inactivity has led to obesity and an increasing number of children being above ideal weight. Not only is it important to teach your child which snacks they should eat, but educating them during the early, formidable years may help them sidestep obesity and becoming overweight in the future when they are adults. Here are some tricks on tasty healthy snacks for children.

One way for your children to eat healthy snacks is to get them started on naturally sweet foods. Since most kids crave sweets for snacks, naturally sweet foods such as fruits are ideal. Encourage them to enjoy a banana, orange, apple, cherries, strawberries and other berries whenever they have a sweet tooth. You can mix in yogurt or even make a fruit smoothie for them with some milk and a drop of chocolate or other natural flavors.

Another great way for your little ones to enjoy healthy snacks is to give them fresh nuts. Kids love peanuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, almonds, etc. One of the things to recognize about children is that if they try enough types of natural and healthy snacks, they will find one that they love. The problem is that many times parents give up trying to find the snacks that their kids enjoy and settle for popular junk foods instead.

When deciding on a healthy snack, what you want to avoid are products with boatloads of sugars, unwanted preservatives and empty calories. While most kids will fight you tooth and nail if they have to eat wheat germ and tofu, most children will be more than happy to eat snacks if they have a sweet taste and are presented in the right way.

Other healthy snacks that many children like are dry cereals. For example, there are many breakfast cereals that are derived from corn, wheat, bran and include nuts and honey. These cereals when consumed at breakfast usually include milk; however, you can easily serve them without milk to your children. One of the most popular dry cereals which are healthy and nutritious for your little one at almost any age is Cheerios. Cheerios are lightly sweetened and tasty either moistened with milk or dry. If your little one craves a delicious snack for lunch or to take along for camp or little league, dry cereal is not only nutritious, but delicious.

For those children that are terribly picky and only want junk food, one strategy to use in order to get your child to eat nutritious snacks is to buy premade natural snacks. Today, there are tons of prepackaged snacks that might look like junk food, but are actually healthy and nutritious for your little one. They include certain fruit roll ups, string cheese and granola bars. Many of these snacks look like junk food, but are actually made from natural ingredients and include relatively little sugar and empty calories. If you are looking for a great way for your child to remain healthy, check out the above mentioned tricks on healthy snacks for little ones.

Dine Without Whine is a great menu planning service for active families. Go to http://www.dinewithoutwhine.com to discover even more rewards to menu planning.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Healthy snacks for kids combined with exercise for preventing obesity

Obesity among kids these days is getting worse, and as parents our concerns are growing just as much. A lot of the time healthy snacks for kids is the last thing we think about at the end of a long day at work. The good thing is that we can play a major role in making a healthy life for our kids.

With healthy diet including healthy snacks for kids and exercise throughout the day we can help avoid some of these serious dangers that face our kids. If we try and create an environment which is full of activities and is really fun as well, then we will be much closer to meeting our goals.

Setting up these patterns as early as possible is the biggest key to setting our kids up for a long and healthy life. It is very important to provide good nutrition for our kids while they are growing and developing. Forming lifelong eating habits, like how they make their meal choices or how they view food on the whole. Healthy snacks for kids is a great start but on top of that we really need to work on physical activities like walking, bicycling, running and swimming. Also physical chores should be assigned to each member of the family like washing the car, mowing the law, cleaning the house and so. Try and keep that amount of time watching TV and playing computer games.

If we implement a healthy eating plan for all our family members not just our kids. This new healthy lifestyle will benefit the whole family.
I’ll be talking about this excellent website that I came across in my next posts but if you after some awesome ideas for healthy snacks for kids then you have to check this site out its just fantastic.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Healthy snacks for kids – Remove the temptation

Getting healthy snacks for kids to work the best is not just about the healthy snack tasting good, it’s just as important to not promote unhealthy snacks.

So by removing the temptation all together we found we had far less arguments and were able to avoid massive tantrums. This is a bit extreme but we found that not actually buying junk food all together has helped remarkable in the fight for promoting healthy snacks for kids.

Our little boy at very young age knew where the chips and soft drinks were kept. If we would tell him it was all gone he would flat out refuse to believe us until he could see with his own eyes that cupboard was empty of junk food. It still amazes me that even though some kids hadn’t even tasted a chip before they still really really really wanted it. It’s like they have a sixth sense for things which are bad for them. Hey I guess they are exactly like us, I think I should start listening to my own advice. So basically if there are only healthy snacks for kids in the house and no junk food you will hopefully much better for it.

Note: It will take a while for it to sink in that all the bad food is gone but it will sink in. No I’m not talking about you I’m talking about your child 

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Healthy snacks for kids - Lead by example

Healthy snacks for kids starts by you the parent leading by example. It's all well and good you wanting your kids to eat healthy but you too must eat healthy as well.

If you open a packet of potato chips in front of kids you cannot expect them to not want to eat some, you can’t have a set of rules for you and separate set of rules for them. Plus eating healthy snacks is good for you and for the kids.

It is often hard when you go to other people's houses to control what your kids eat due to not wanting to have a tantrum on your hands. This is ok if it’s not too often hopefully your friends will listen to you about maybe having more healthy snacks for the kids next time. The main thing is to make sure when you are at home you have healthy snacks for kids.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Healthy Snacks For Kids - First blog post

In a perfect world healthy snacks for kids would be simple.

As parents we are constantly struggling with the everyday need to feed our children so they can grow up to be big and strong.

The aim of this blog is to help parents around the world with ideas for healthy snacks for kids.

So stay tuned for some tips that not only are healthy but also taste good and will keep your kids coming back for more.