Healthy Diet for Kids Explained

Knowing how a healthy diet for kids would be set up is less complicated than you might think.

You don't need to follow exact guidelines or count how much of each vitamin and mineral they get by eating what you serve them.

A healthy diet for kids can also look a little different from child to child and the amounts they eat really depends on them - we adults don't know how much is enough for them even though we would like to think we do.

Something important to think about is that the gut takes better care of smaller portions of food.

My Son A Few Years Ago, Just Having Found A Wild White Button Mushroom

There will be better assimilation of the food your child has eaten if you let him finish when he says "all done", instead of telling him he should have a few more bites.

If you have weight problems in your family and you are worried about your child, contact me and we will discuss a more personalized eating plan that you can follow.

Here I share one of the many meal plans I write for the kids in families could look like.

I always try to keep it gluten free and vegan, because you never know if this is something that is a problem in the little individual we are designing a diet plan for. More often than not kids these days have one or more food sensitivity.

Healthy Diet for Kids - Healthy Meal Ideas for Kids

So here is the children's healthy meal plan I approximately follow before I personalize it.

Healthy Eating Plan for Kids

Breakfast

Other possible healthy breakfast options along with fruit would be...

- Some healthy home made cookies

- Chia seed pudding with berries and almond milk that you can prepare the night before or some bread (gluten free if needed) with peanut butter, almond butter or hummus or similar.

Possibly a freshly squeezed juice also (tangerine, orange or grapefruit for example). Mild ginger tea with lemon is also a good option.

Snack

Fresh and/or dried fruit or berries, fruit smoothies, juice, nuts, cucumber sticks with guacamole or hummus...

Lunch

Vegetables like celery, broccoli, cauliflower... raw or boiled.

Potatoes, pasta, millet, beans or rice and some home made sauce or a soup. A sandwich with lettuce, tomato, avocado and vegan pesto is also a good option. Always with some fresh herbs like parsley, basil or dill.

Snack

Banana with peanut butter or a smoothie without dairy.

Dinner

Some examples would be stews like coconut, lentil and carrot curry, vegetarian tacos, vegan sushi, stuffed bell peppers, veggie patties with potatoes, quinoa with veggies, risotto, falafel, vegetables sauteed with fresh chopped tomatoes, onions and canned white beans and possibly some other vegetables... the options are endless.

Always serve a salad with dinner, for example a simple green salad with lemon, olive oil, avocado, cucumber and tomato. Or then a more filling salad you can have as a side dish like a lentil, parsley and tomato salad.

Another nice one...

Grated carrots and raisins with orange juice as a dressing.

And...

Grated cucumber salad with some dried cranberries and lemon juice is a healthy and yummy combination.

I also always encourage moms to add some kelp flakes to the lunch or dinner meal, just because it's a great source of iodine that is an important mineral.

Evening snack

Herbal tea like chamomile, yarrow, peppermint or ginger and some crackers or bread with hummus or just a banana if not that hungry.

So, there it is. Hope that helped a little? Now you could see in what kind of direction to go.

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A Few Final Tips

Try to squeeze in a much fruit as possible, that is what I try to do. And don't panic if they don't eat too much during the warm meals (lunch and dinner). The other ones (breakfast and snacks) are equally as important - if not even more.

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