If your children had their way, they would fill the breakfast table with ice cream, cakes, chocolates, and everything sweet and yummy. But as a mom, preparing the right dishes for your kids will help them grow healthily, ward off diseases, and prevent many health issues in the future. They may not appreciate it now, but they’ll thank you later. So, if you want the best for your growing kids, here are five foods they should always eat.
Table of Contents
1. Reduced-fat dairy foods
The key dairy foods your growing child needs include milk, yogurt, and cheese. These foods are excellent sources of calcium and protein – two nutrients a growing child needs for healthy growth. They aid in muscle development while supporting strong bone growth. Cheese can also help prevent osteoporosis, increase dental health, and reduce blood pressure. Try giving your child different types of dairy foods each day, but opt for reduced-fat options. And don’t deprive your child of dairy foods even if they’re lactose intolerant. You can find lactose-free alternatives like lactose free cheese, cashew yogurt, almost milk, etc.
2. Dry fruits
A growing child’s body needs all the vitamins and minerals it can get to help boost its growth hormones. Various studies have highlighted the role vitamins play in helping to increase height in kids and maintain weight. And the more fruits your growing child gets, the more vitamins their little bodies benefit from. Vitamins also help to support growing immune systems, strengthening them to prevent a myriad of infections.
So, why choose dry fruits? Because they last longer and are cheaper. Plus, throwing a few of them into your child’s breakfast cereal is easy. Of course, you can also choose fresh fruits as a midday snack for your kids.
3. Nuts and seeds
Nuts and seeds are known to sharpen memory and energize growing bodies. If your little one loves to head outside and play, nuts and seeds feed their bodies with the energy boost they need. And when it’s time to learn, nuts and seeds are the memory enhancers they need for proper retentive memory. Pumpkin seeds, walnuts, and chia seeds are excellent examples, as they’re rich in zinc, omega-3, and other nutrients a growing child needs to improve memory and brain function.
4. Green vegetables
Almost every mom knows that convincing a growing child to eat green vegetables is no walk in the park. But green vegetables are mandatory for kids, as they offer almost endless health benefits, including boosting the immune system and supporting a young digestive system. Green vegetables your growing kids must certainly have for a growing child include avocados, sweet potatoes (yes, they’re also green vegetables!), grape tomatoes, carrots, spinach, and cauliflower.
5. Grain foods
Grain foods include bread, oats, rice, corn, noodles, pasta, and healthy breakfast cereals, to mention a few. Such foods are energy providers for kids while keeping them feeling full for longer hours. You can combine grain foods with protein sources like beans, eggs, fish, lean meat, and chicken.
Featured Photo by Jill Wellington: https://www.pexels.com/
