One of the hardest parts in the first few years of parenthood is cultivating healthy eating habits. Toddlers in particular are so picky, and it’s extremely annoying. It’s really easy to become discouraged and just throw in the towel. Just let them have the ice cream for dinner.
It’s a lot easier to tell a child that if they don’t eat what’s in front of them that they’ll go to bed without dinner. But anyone with a heart would not be able to send their kid to bed hungry. So we have to get creative.
I started to give my daughter a choice. I’d tell her she could either eat what I made her, or she could have a healthy smoothie for dinner. The secret to the smoothie was that I could sneak some veggies in there and as long as it was mostly fruit, she’d have no idea.
At other times I would tell her that if she ate a good portion of her dinner, that I’d let her have ice cream for dessert. The ice cream was homemade, and again, I was able to disguise some vegetables in it. It was predominantly berries, so the greens would pretty much disappear into the reds and purples.
Throw in some nut butters into either one, and you have a real winner on your hands. The other benefit is that you get an extra dose of protein that way. My daughter loved it, and I knew she was getting a lot of the nutrients she needed just from these 2 things.
I never realized how easy it was to make ice creams, sorbets and smoothies with my Cuisinart food processor. It was nice to know what ingredients were going into these things and that they weren’t just loaded with added preservatives and artificial ingredients.
I thought it might make sense to make larger batches of these items and freeze them. I could just make up batches twice a month or so and keep them on hand for whenever I’d need them. I realized if I got a bigger work bowl I could do a lot more things in a shorter amount of time.
I visited the KitchenWorksUSA website where they sell the Cuisinart DLC-8 4-piece Tritan Bowl Kit Part. That was one of the best ideas I had in a while. I was able to whip up large batches in no time and I was done a lot faster than before.
This is such a great method for getting my daughter to eat her fruits and veggies. I’m really hoping that it will keep her on the right track with making good eating habits in the future.