A colorful vegetables education with grandma

Teaching young children about nutrition and offering a range of healthy foods is vital for lifelong healthy eating habits.

Being a grandmother is a wonderful gift in life. Nothing like sharing time with my little angel and letting the chef in me prepare healthy food for her. Teaching kids at a very young age to enjoy a variety of foods is important for many reasons. Health may be the priority, but so should educating children on

- The various nutrients needed for the body to function well

- The variety of nutrients needed for the right development of our senses

- The variety of nutrients for academic performances

- The importance of colors, textures, flavors, aromas, and ripeness

- The importance of organic farming, season's rhythm, and eating seasonally

- What to look for when shopping for organic foods

- The best way to prepare foods that preserve their nutrients

- The pleasure of the table with control

- Family traditions

and traveling through world foods.

These are just a few examples of how to keep a child interested and wanting to try different foods. Exposure is crucial and must be done gradually to educate their taste buds. Many tools can also be utilized to do so. Books, trips to farms, farmers markets, food adventures, and picnics come to mind. Children's cooking classes are for older kids, but you can, certainly, instill interest from a very young age in various ways. Experience is key as well to instilling lifelong sustainable healthy habits.

A little secret, if your child refuses to eat something, don’t force her or him. Do not categorize them as picky eaters nor encourage them to be. Instead, continue introducing her or him to other foods and re-introduce the challenged item differently. Example: A little olive oil, melted cheese, or tomato sauce on broccoli does the trick for many kids. Puréed with another item or simply in a soup can also do the trick. Be creative instead of reacting negatively, harshly, or giving up easily. And remember, it takes some time to educate children's taste buds and bring them to like something they initially seem to hate. So do not give up easily, rather persevere in creative ways. The ultimate price will be raising epicurean eaters and instilling lifelong sustainable healthy eating habits.

Let me share with you, a strategy that I recently utilized with my granddaughter. At a year and four months, she already loves many foods from chicken, ham, chickpea, quinoa, rice, beans, potato nuggets, pasta, apples, berries, and watermelon. Vegetables not so much, nor boiled/steamed/mashed potatoes. Ahead of her visit, I pre-cooked a bunch of vegetables and a boiled potato. With chicken, this was going to be my lunch as well. She loves to try what I eat and, while I don't encourage her to eat from my plate, I prepare the same food for her. Yes, my example is crucial to her food awakening. I let her look at the prepared vegetables while I prepared my plate. Then I let her point toward the vegetables she wants me to put on her plate. She picked carrots, mushrooms, and onions. I added a few more pieces of zucchini that she did not choose. It is one of those she does not seem to care for per her parents. I talked to her about trying a bit of grandma's special zucchini recipe. By the way, I only utilize the red peppers in the photo when I prepare soup or purée, which we were not doing that day. It can be a choking hazard for young children, so be careful with raw or cooked bell peppers. She watched me quickly reheat her vegetables with a little olive oil, as I wanted to maintain the crunchy texture and add flavor. She ate everything along the chicken, including the zucchini she would have not touched before. The texture was visibly what made a difference. Keep the zucchini crunchy, problem solved!

And for the potatoes, half a tiny bite was all I got at first. Then I decided to add a little melted butter and a touch of salt over the pieces. I mixed them and gave her a piece to try. She ate them all and gave me a big smile with a yummy sound of approval! It is often a slight adjustment that can make a huge difference whether kids eat something or not. So, keep that in mind and keep on experiencing with them. It is what my mom and grandma did with me and my brothers. I am very grateful for such experimental education. I am glad to have a chance to do that with my one-year-old and four-month-old granddaughter today. May the fun adventure continue...

Categories: : Coaching Tips, Health, Recipes, Wellness