Green Child Magazine Winter 2015 | Page 48

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 48 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