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Healthy and Kid-Approved

Virginia Schreiber

Kids love to make and enjoy their own snacks.

by Adriane Louie
February 22, 2012

In 2010, first lady Michelle Obama initiated the "Let's Move!" Program to encourage healthy lifestyle behaviors for children. The initiative focuses on eating healthy and being active. The goal is to encourage the whole family to make small changes to achieve an overall healthy lifestyle.

Now is a great time to evaluate the eating habits of our own families and encourage our kids to eat healthier. This can be achieved by providing kids with kid-friendly alternatives to pre-packaged and processed foods. Here's how.

Provide kid-friendly meals and snacks to encourage children to eat more fruits and vegetables.
• Some good ideas are apple slices and yogurt dip, raisins, or carrot sticks and celery with low-fat ranch dressing.
• Kids can make their own trail mix by combining their favorite dried fruits, nuts and pretzels in a small Ziploc bag.
• Add vegetables such as broccoli florets or bell pepper slices to pasta dishes like spaghetti or macaroni and cheese.
• Save candy and sugary snack bars for special treats and not as everyday snacks.
• Top whole-wheat frozen waffles with low-fat yogurt or cream cheese and fresh fruit to make breakfast pizzas.

Whole fruits and vegetables are healthier than juices and sugary drinks.
• Choose juices with no sugar added, and limit the number of juice drinks your children are allowed to drink during the day.
• Encourage the kids to drink water during snack time.

Parents can reduce fat in their children's diet in a variety of ways.
• Serve kid-friendly chicken fingers baked, instead of fried, with homemade dipping sauces.
• Use lean ground beef for hamburgers.
• Serve fruit-based desserts like sorbet and mini fruit tarts instead of cookies and pre-packaged snack cakes.

Get the kids involved.
• Go shopping together and let the kids help pick out fresh produce.
• Kids are great at snapping green beans, tearing up lettuce or measuring frozen vegetables.
• Kids can also stir in seasonings and herbs to add their own special touch to homemade applesauce or mashed potatoes.

Websites with kid-friendly recipes and healthy snacks:
• http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org
• http://www.letsmove.gov
• http://www.foodchamps.org

For more mouth-watering treats and tasty eats, chow down over at our Food Blog and the JFP Bite Club Facebook page, and follow the aroma on Twitter. Be sure to bring your appetite!

posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/22/12 at 07:07 PM. [printer version] Share |

COMMENTS

:: recentcomments

May 24, 2012 | 09:34 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
golden eagle: @notmuch, here are some facts about voter fraud, straight from the Brennan Center's website: Fraud by individual voters is both irrational and extremely rare. Most citizens who ...

May 24, 2012 | 07:14 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
notmuch: Oh, I have hundreds of those right-wing sites, and I couldn't say which ones are more "partisan"--they all include those pesky facts. Yes, when dead voters and multiple voters under ...

May 24, 2012 | 07:11 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
justjess: @ golden eagle. Thanks for the spell check. I didn't just spell assassination wrong ONE time, I did it over and over. LOL! You are right on the mark; I was trying to use the word ...

May 24, 2012 | 06:46 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
golden eagle: I don't think you could've found a more partisan right-wing site than the Daily Caller. The fact of the matter is that the right is using this issue not as a means of improving ...

May 24, 2012 | 06:10 PM
[Dish] Cobby Williams, Young Gun
trusip: WOW! was this a real interview or a joke?

May 24, 2012 | 05:00 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
notmuch: I don't think you could have found a more liberal example of a "non-partisan" site, but even so, their evidence seems to consist of 250 carefully chosen instances in one area of ...

May 24, 2012 | 04:48 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
golden eagle: Rather than using ideological websites to support your argument, I'll use the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice. Really good site.

May 24, 2012 | 04:30 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
notmuch: I might be missing something here, but I am a little confused by Golden Eagle's points: "the fact is that voter fraud is extremely rare"--so it is of no consequence that some ...

May 24, 2012 | 11:26 AM
Nick Hanauer's 'Controversial' TED Talk -- Tax the Rich?
RobbieR: TED is an elite academic conference.

May 24, 2012 | 10:18 AM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
DonnaLadd: No, Darryl, no one blocked you. Stop being paranoid. We just typically open comments in moderation during non-office hours. To me, a bozo isn't someone who disagrees with me. It's ...

May 24, 2012 | 06:18 AM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
Darryl: That's funny that you blocked my last comment...

May 24, 2012 | 05:31 AM
Nick Hanauer's 'Controversial' TED Talk -- Tax the Rich?
Renaldo Bryant: So true. This is why critical and analytical thinking are so important to citizens in a democracy. The rich have the power to shape perception ...

May 23, 2012 | 05:24 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
Darryl: justjess, you stated "Racism and discriminatory practices continue." What objective data do you have to support this? Calling someone unqualified is a subjective interpretation of ...

May 23, 2012 | 01:37 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
golden eagle: Wow, my English was bad on the previous post. You know how it is on these iPhones.

May 23, 2012 | 12:30 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
golden eagle: @Jess, I think the word you're looking for is "assassination". @Darryl, do we really know that the majority of MS'ians wanted this, when you consider that this was a ...

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