Sunday, June 3, 2007

Activities to encourage and interest children in eating healthy foods

Make a collage of colorful foods. Cut photos from magazines and paste them onto a paper. Then put it up on the refrigerator.

Discover new fruits and veggies and talk about them. Compare colors, textures, tastes.

Buy some fruit and have your children make fruit faces by cutting up the fruit (you do the cutting) and using toothpicks, place pieces of fruit on larger fruit to make funny faces. Then eat the results. Yum.
Fruit toothpicked together to make funny faces
Fruit Faces made by kids

Make arrangements of cut up veggies attractive to kids -- and adults.

Take a field trip to an indoor garden or a place where veggies are grown hydroponically.

Arrange food on plates in an attractive way, so that the food looks more appealing. Get kids to arrange foods attractively when having a party or gathering. Buy a few colorful plates at a discount store to make the meal more attractive.

Enjoy conversation during meals with your kids or grand-kids. Kids love to hear stories about when you were growing up.
Grapes and blueberries arranged on toothpicks around a dip made of sour cream and brown sugar
Blueberry and grape arrangement for parties

Meals have been and still are an important part of family life. With my grandchildren, I like to encourage eating healthy foods as I did with my own two children. Eating well is am important part of life, and in our blog on the Maine Warmers' web site there are quite a few gluten-free recipes. While you are there you might want to take a peek and our Comforting Creatures designs -- microwave heating pads to help relax stiff muscles and more.