Getting your children eating healthy food can sometimes seem to be a struggle. They see so much junk advertised on television that they think it’s normal to eat it.
Sugar gets everywhere and is probably one of the things that you consider when you’re looking at the ingredient in the food you serve to your children.
For instance, sugared water – also known as Cola – isn’t a drink that you’d normally make at home. If you were making a cup of coffee or tea, it’s highly unlikely that you’d add 7 teaspoons of sugar to it. Yet, if you are buying a commercially produced, non-diet, soft drink that’s the quantity of sugar you’d get per can.
So how do you start your children eating healthy food?
Start with weaning them off added-sugar drinks. Diet drinks have their own issues, so the ideal drink is water. Failing that, try a freshly squeezed fruit juice. Even this small change, from a high sugar, added soft drink at the burger bar to water or orange juice can be a good start. After all, no matter how hard you try to get your children eating healthy food, there will still be times when they end up at a burger bar or a pizza restaurant.
When you are at the supermarket, watch out for added sugar. Be especially aware of products that shout out from the label that they are low in fat. Often the fat has been reduced, only to be replaced by sugar.
Remember that sugar often comes in different names on a food label. Watch out for these “alternative” names:
- Fructose
- Glucose
- Corn syrup
- Brown sugar
- Dextrose
- Galactose
- Honey
- Maltose
- Maple syrup
- Molasses
- Sucrose
Once you start looking, you’ll be surprised how often several of these appear in the same product. No wonder it’s not easy to get your children eating healthy food.
After cutting down on unnecessary sugars, your next point of attack in your quest to getting your children eating healthy food is probably fried food. Weaning your children off fried food, or at least reducing the number of times a week that they eat food that has been fried, should be next on your list.