Nutritional Nuggets
Expert Christina Towle answers your questions!
Tabitha R: Our sons, ages 5 and 3, are going through a picky stage. My mother-in-law
said my husband went in and out of being
a picky eater a few times growing up. She
always let him eat what he wanted (within
reason), and he came around to where he
likes a great variety of food and is overall a
healthy eater. While I mostly agree with her
philosophy, I also know that their growing
bodies need nutrition. What can I do to balance this situation? Thanks!
Dear Tabitha,
A struggle for us moms for sure—making carrots, cucumbers, & chickpeas as appealing for
our children as cake, cookies, and candy!
Here are a few tips that I’ve practiced that will
give you some control over your boys’ eating
habits so you won’t have to depend completely
on hope for the future...
1. Train taste buds. Start early and introduce
kids to plain tastes. Best case is upon introduction to solid food, but it’s never too late.
Choose foods like steamed broccoli with a
little sea salt and pure butter, mashed sweet
potato with a hint of maple syrup, cucumber with lemon & avocado. If children are
exposed to sweet simplicity (rather than
overdressed, artificially sweetened dressings, dips, entrees etc.) they will lean toward
healthy food because junk food will taste too
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sweet, heavy, or unnatural. Win!
2. Mistakenly, some children have been
turned off from healthy eating by being offered food that doesn’t taste good. If a child is
introduced to an apple that is shipped across
borders, bruised, and chalky, the child’s opinion of fruit will not be favorable. However, if
a child is introduced to an apple that is local and in-season [with perhaps a dusting of
cinnamon], they will enjoy the taste and will
then choose fruit going forward.
3. If it’s not possible to introduce high-qual-
ity foods all the time and/or you’re like most
of us moms and on-the-run, discover brands
that supply nutrition along with taste. There
are some “taste like dessert” protein and
green powder brands I use for my son - mix
them with a banana and milk-of-choice and
you have a great smoothie that’s complete
with nutrition. There are also all-natural
gummy supplements that can help round out
your child’s nutrition.
Kristi M: I’ve typically been a grazer when
it comes to food. However, I just started
the Whole30 eating plan, and it encourages
eating more like 3 meals a day. They say
snacking can disrupt the normal functioning of leptin, insulin, and glucagon and can
inadvertently cause you to overeat when
your hormones are out of sync. At first I
was worried I wouldn’t be able to make it