Nesbug NaturalsHelp Your Kids Learn to Love Healthy Foods! – School life is very busy and often stressful for our children. I used to see this in my daughter. Caring parents love to use vacation periods like the summer holidays to help their children recuperate and regain their strength.
Never underestimate the value of the special attention you give to your children during these special times of the year. If this extra parental nourishment doesn’t happen year after year, a child may just get so tired that he becomes “broken” and weary with life. Not having the strength to resist negative influences and pressures, or not feeling the family support, he or she may enter the path of self destruction that we see so many young ones heading down these days.
So how can you help your children regain their strength and continue to grow in a positive direction? I know it might sound simplistic, but here is one great way:
Help Your Kids Learn to Enjoy Healthy Foods!
Benefits of Healthy Foods for Kids
Many families have found that doing this breeds more peaceful children and less behavioral problems. Aggressive or irritable children can change into peaceful little lambs when they begin to eat more healthfully. They will feel so much more at peace when they stop eating the prepacked, preservative ridden, and artificially colored junk that fills the majority of the supermarket aisles.
More and more children are also having weight issues which is a growing concern for many parents. A healthy plant-based diet can help a child maintain a healthy weight. There are many tastier and healthier options for parents and children to enjoy. And there is so much fresh produce in season this time of year. But first we have to get the kids to want to choose the healthier options.
How can you help your kids learn to love healthy food?
Make sure different types of fruit are readily available around the home. Encourage them to drink water as their staple drink. There are ‘special’ healthy drinks to enjoy. But water is the main drink we want to encourage our children to drink. Make it readily available for them to enjoy. Also check out my post on – How to Drink Water on a Plant Based Diet.
Carers and children can make homemade granola type snack bars with Plant Based ingredients from scratch. These goodies won’t have the preservatives or artificial colorings like many store bought products have, and they will actually be more filling.
I have some good recipes you might like to try. I will share one with you soon. There are some great recipes that only require 3-5 ingredients.
A special note about kids and allergies –
Some children are allergic to nut and seeds. Talk to a qualified medical or healthcare practitioner about possible allergic reactions of any new foods you introduce to your child’s diet.
Here are some wonderful ideas that will help your children enjoy the healthy eating lifestyle!
Make a scapbook of healthy food recipes
Make a scrap book page of each recipe tried. At the end of summer you will have a personalized “Family Favorites Recipe Book”. If you make a certain time each week to do this, it builds anticipation and it’s a family time the children will look forward to and remember with joy.
Enjoy Hiking and Picnics with Healthy Foods
Go out for a hike or a picnic. Stop by the grocery store on your way. Pick up lots of healthy plant based foods to fill a picnic basket or cooler. I enjoyed doing this with my Dad a few times in my youth. But the food items we got weren’t really plant-based. Still, it was a lot of fun for my brothers and me.
Activities like this build family connection and love. When the foods are whole-food plant-based and the family is hanging together, the children will be healthier and feel a special joy they will always remember. They will learn you don’t have to eat junk food to have fun. Healthy snacks are even better!
Make Healthy Homemade Beverages
Choose to drink homemade lemonade and fruit smoothies over carbonated soda drinks. Children can learn to enjoy and make so many varieties of plant based drinks and smoothies.
Soft drinks, fruit juice (no fiber), and other drinks that are heavily laden with unhealthy sugars and unnatural preservatives, may cause depression, diabetes, and behavior problems in children and young adults. I really encourage you to do the research on why these types of drinks are the cause of so many health problems. Share these facts with your kids.
Of course, as noted earlier, the best daily drink for children is good old fashioned natural water. Be sure to check out this article on how we can get the most benefits for our health when drinking water.
Talk about Healthy Foods
From infancy, encourage your young ones to really enjoy eating healthfully, even when the family is out and about enjoying recreational activities.
As they get older, have the conversation with them about why it’s important to include more plant foods in our diet.
Share the results of your nutritional research with your kids. If they understand the principles behind eating a healthy Plant Based diet and the benefits it brings, they may end up motivating you, more than you motivate them!
In the the book Disease-Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right, Dr. Joel Fuhrman discusses how eating well in our early years may enable us to win the war on cancer. Bolstered by this scientific evidence, he helps you do everything you can to protect your child against developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases, and cancer through a solid nutritional groundwork. This is a great book to help you as a parent encourage your children to understand the importance of eating healthy foods.
Grow Fruit Trees with Your Young Ones
Another idea is to plant a fruit tree or vine in your garden or backyard and watch how it grows over the next year. Grow a type of fruit that is suited to your climate. Take a picture of the sapling. Involve the children in the whole process of planting and caring for the plant over the next year.
This time next year everyone will be amazed at the plant’s growth. Imagine how happy the children will be a couple of years later, when they can enjoy the fruits of their labor. This is a skill and interest they can take with them into adulthood, even when you are not around.
And best of all, the children will be learning to love healthy foods for kids!
Sincerely
