Your kids will be more excited about eating healthy if you try to make it a fun learning experience for the entire family! Here are some activities that you can do to encourage eating healthy and growing a love for food in little hearts.
- Grocery store trip learning about ingredients, labels and the difference between fresh foods and boxed foods.
- Amount of sugar in soda visual lesson with a clip from the documentary Fed Up with how the stomach digests soda.
- Make smoothies with their favorite fruits and vegetables. Talk about the different colors!
- Play with produce veggie game…so many funny names, colors, shapes
- What veggie/fruit are you song
- Strawberry stamps with blueberry & coconut oil “ink” – describe what you see when you look at the strawberry close up! Seeds, colors, discuss how it is grown…
- Make a berry bracelet: you will need – blackberries, strawberries and raspberries, an ice pick to make a small hole in the berries, thread unflavored dental floss threw the holes in the berries and tie onto wrist.
- Make smoothies then put into popsicle molds for cooling summer treats
- Banana nice cream – make ice cream by blending frozen bananas, with chocolate, cinnamon and/or a nut butter.
- Blind taste testing using some comfort favorite foods as a trick to get them to try foods they have always refused to try before.
Examples of food to try:
m&m’s
banana
green bean
sweet potato
cauliflower
donut
pizza
- Fruit in water – fun way to talk about berries and how they make a great natural sweetener and flavor adder
- Watermelon slushy – take your watermelon and blend it in a food processor or blender
- Make your own trail mix – let the children pick out what they would like to put in theirs
They are watching you and how you respond to food so get excited about food and make it fun for the entire family! Set a day once a week that you try a new foodie activity, even if it is just cooking something new together.
Most importantly food is fun…so NO stressing about it! – ML
Having healthy soil is the first step to gardening!