Healthy is as healthy does

Getting your kids to eat right is no easy task — so set the right food tone early in their lives

I used to admire moms who fed their babies all manner of good, healthy foods, promoting well-developed palates in their offspring. I would also secretly gasp at those who only served highly processed, nutritionally deficient pre-packaged “kids meals”, until my own child became a toddler with his own finicky palate.
Feeding children is not a black and white affair. Any parent who has had a tough time getting their child to eat knows how much of a struggle it can be. Here are some tips that have helped me in my quest to encourage my little one to eat healthy, balanced and nutritionally diverse meals.
Be the example
If you generally eat well and only &have healthy foods in the house, or when you eat in front of your children, the example being set is a good one. They cannot covet that which they do not know. 
Do not impose your biases
I have a friend who never gave her daughter plain yoghurt because she herself hated it. She preferred pots of sweetened, flavoured yoghurt and also bought them for her five-year-old. One day, when I baby-sat her last year, I &introduced her to plain ‘Greek’ yoghurt and the child loved it! What’s the moral of the story?  If you have a bias against a particular healthy food, do not impose it on your children, as your preferences may not apply to them.
Make it
I know we are all incredibly busy people, but the only way to really control what goes into your child’s food is to actually make most of it from scratch and buy stuff that is as basic as possible. You can always add to it later. Furthermore, bottled baby food is also nowhere as tasty as the same ingredients cooked at home. If your child is older, things like chicken nuggets have very little real chicken meat inside them and a whole lot of other chemicals and enhancers, which do nothing for their little growing bodies. You are better off making your own. 
Change the texture
I learnt with my own child that when he spat out my delicious cabbage, carrot and pea dish recently, it was not necessarily because he hated it. Sometimes, he just gets really hung up on the texture of food placed in front of him and refuses to eat or swallow things with a certain feel in the mouth. Foods with skin, like peas, or that are stringy, like shredded cabbage, are on that list. The solution? I cook them ultra soft, purée them and serve with more favourably textured foods like rice, yam, plain yoghurt, fish, chicken, meat, cereal and bread.
Juice it
You can also juice or blend fruits and vegetables and add these to the foods they actually like eating. Add a little freshly juiced spinach to scrambled eggs for a fun recreation of Dr Seuss’ popular children’s book Green Eggs and Ham, or juice beet or carrot to add to oatmeal porridge for some colourful meals. They get to have fun with colours and you ensure that the vegetables are eaten one way or another.
Let them play with their food
If you want them to explore a new &food, sometimes it is best to give it to them and let them play with it. &That is how my toddler snacks on chickpeas instead of cheese balls. He plays with them, takes off the skins, moves them around on his high chair, and eventually pops them one by one into his mouth. 
Let them play with kids who eat well
As much as we love to think our kids will emulate us perfectly, they are so more easily influenced by other pint-sized humans. If you have friends who are raising their own kids with healthy foods, get them together for playdates. My son refused chickpeas from me the first few times but gobbled them up when his one-year-old playmate put one in his mouth. Now I have no problem getting him to eat chickpeas. 
Don’t give them junk
My son does not like cake or ice cream. He is almost two but has only tasted cake twice — homemade cakes on both occasions. He has never had chocolate. One day, he will. It just won’t be any day soon. Too much sugar wreaks havoc on children’s teeth. Do not give them sweets and snacks as rewards, as that only hardwires a very wrong and dangerous message in them that sugary food is to be used as reward for good behaviour. 
What are some of the tips and tricks you use to get your children to eat foods that are good for them? I would love to hear what worked for you! 

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