As soon as it is time for complementary foods, young mothers are seriously puzzled how to create a balanced menu for their babies. Pediatricians and their terrible tables, norms, indicative menus add fuel to the fire. And the child does not eat that! If you read articles on this topic, then you think: "That's it, I'm a bad mother, I don't give the child something useful!" This article is the easiest way to monitor the diet of children and finally stop worrying about this topic.
Breast-feeding
While your baby, who has begun to receive complementary foods (and possibly already an active eater), is breastfed, he has both an additional source of calories and an absolutely amazing source of nutrients, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. And a huge list of everything valuable and important, which would take a whole page! All that is missing is fiber. Breastfed babies already receive micronutrient-balanced nutrition, which allows the mother to worry less and just feed what the baby eats.
Parents' diet
Eat healthy yourself, do not eat unhealthy snacks and fast food with children (chips, crackers, crackers, fries, hamburgers, and so on) and promote with all your kind the love of apples, bananas, cucumbers and all other vegetables. We are the best example for healthy eating habits.
Healthy plate
This emblematic plate from the healthy eating program “Choose my plate” replaces the old pyramid-based concept of a healthy diet and shows which elements in what proportions make up a healthy daily menu for a healthy active person. These are fruits, vegetables, carbohydrates (cereals and potatoes together), protein, dairy products. It is simple and intuitive.
How to Apply the Healthy Dish Principle?
It’s very simple. You don't have to try to combine all the ingredients in one meal (this is ideal). Just make sure that during the day all 5 components of the plate are on your child's menu, a little of everything, and you should try to give more fruits and vegetables.
Perfect meals
Many children love Italian cuisine: spaghetti or curly pasta with sauce, pizza. By the way, if you make the sauce yourself, then it will contain several useful components at once. And homemade pizza is the perfect dish that fits the whole healthy plate at once.
Pies, pancakes, spring rolls, borscht, omelettes are also multi-component dishes that make it easy to feed healthy foods that the child loves.
Even if a child eats "like a chicken", you can always stick a little bit of everything in it: a slice of cheese, three peas, a slice of apple, a slice of bread, three tablespoons of yogurt and a slice of cutlet.
In times of doubt, use the healthy plate principle. And there will be no need to mask broccoli, paint eyes with mayonnaise for a sausage, make a hedgehog out of a cutlet and persuade him to eat a spoonful of healthy, tasteless cottage cheese. Focus not on individual products, but on groups. Each of them contains something that your gourmet loves.
