Child-friendly vegetables and fruits

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1. Always have good vegetables and fruits available for children

Always have good vegetables and fruits available for children at home or bring along is a way to help children eat vegetables and fruits more often.
Put a fruit bowl on the table, dining room or in the refrigerator. Pre-cut fruits and store them in the refrigerator before eating. Buy seasonal fresh fruit because it will be cheaper but taste the best. Buy dried, frozen or canned fresh fruit. Pre-cut and packaged fruit can be purchased.

2. How to ensure the nutritional value of good vegetables and fruits for children

Fruits and vegetables are good for children, but when giving children vegetables and fruits, it is necessary to ensure the nutritional value they bring. Here are some tips to help you do this:
Give your child whole fruit or cut fruit to eat instead of juicing to ensure enough fiber. Regularly feed your child and drink fruits with a lot of potassium such as bananas, prunes or prune juice, peaches and dried apricots, orange juice. Choose canned baby juices made from 100% fruit, they are better than juices in syrup form. Regularly change fruit for children to provide a variety of nutrient content.

3. How to include good vegetables and fruits for children in the meals of the day?

Parents can refer to some of the following guidelines to include good vegetables and fruits for children in the meals of the day. Example:
Breakfast: Give your child a bowl of cereal with peaches or bananas; a pancake with blueberries; 1 glass of orange or grapefruit juice; a glass of low-fat or fat-free yogurt mixed with fresh fruit. Lunch: Let children bring bananas, tangerines, grapes. Let the child choose the fruit placed in the dining room or at home. Parents can also prepare an individual fruit container such as peaches or apples for their children to take with them to school lunches, very easy and convenient. Dinner: Salads are good for kids, add mashed pineapple to a coleslaw, or add oranges or grapes to a salad with walnuts, celery, and apples. Combine meat dishes with fruit like chicken with apricots or mango. Barbecue party: Add fruit like pineapple or peaches skewered into sticks. Dessert: Fruit salad, pear, baked apple.

4. How to include healthy vegetables and fruits in snacks?

Parents can refer to some of the following guidelines to include healthy vegetables and fruits in children's snacks instead of candies. For example:
Pre-cut fruit into small pieces for children to eat or bring or buy fresh pre-cut fruit in the supermarket. Snacks of small and berries or fresh grapes are also great choices. Always carry a ready-made packet of dried fruit such as apricots, apples, pineapples, bananas, cherries, figs, dates, cranberries, blueberries, plums, grapes. Yogurt, peanut butter eaten with fruit are good for children in snacks. Spread peanut butter over apple slices or fat-free/low-fat yogurt with berries or kiwi slices for your baby. Ice cream juice is made with 100% fresh fruit as an alternative to other high-fat snacks.

5. How to make vegetables and fruits good for children look more attractive?

Children often prefer to eat candies and other fast foods over vegetables and fruits because they look more eye-catching and delicious. Parents can refer to some of the following guidelines to make good vegetables and fruits for children look more attractive. For example:
Soak fruit with fat-free or low-fat yogurt such as zucchini or melon. The taste of the fruit will be better when soaked with yogurt. Creative smoothies include low-fat or fat-free yogurt or milk blended with fruit and little ice. Fresh, frozen, or canned fruit and overripe fruit can be used as well. Bananas and strawberries are good fruits for children. Blending them with yogurt will create smoothies with delicious flavors and eye-catching colors, stimulating both taste and sight of children. If using frozen fruit we may not need to add ice. Combine many different fruits such as apples, bananas, oranges, .... For fruit salads not to change color, you can mix pears, bananas, apples with pineapple, oranges or a little lemon juice.

6. Tips to help children eat vegetables and fruits

Vegetables and fruits are good for children, but children often do not like to eat them, especially vegetables because they taste bland, even have a bad taste. Give children the joy and excitement of eating vegetables, and based on the child's age and skills, parents should provide children with healthy ingredients and help children prepare dishes from vegetables and fruits. tree. Specifically:
Parents and children should eat a lot of fruit in the main meal or snack every day. Let your child choose fruit for their lunch. Depending on age, have your child help you with shopping, washing, peeling, or slicing fruit. When shopping, allow your child to choose a healthy fruit that he or she has never eaten before to try. Children often like to dip or dip foods in sauces or thick liquids. Quickly dip vegetables in yogurt or seasonings like herbs or garlic. Yogurt or sauces are also very suitable for dipping with carrots, broccoli - green. Pieces of fruit go great with yogurt and cinnamon or vanilla. Give your kids a space to make pizza - a dish every child loves, with a base made from bagels or ready-made whole-wheat pita bread, tomato sauce, low-fat cheese and vegetables or fruit Cut into small pieces to spread on top. Thus, the child has a good pizza and vegetables for him. Decorate the plate with fruit slices in the shape of a butterfly with ingredients including a carrot or celery stick for the body, butterfly wings are thin slices of apple spread with peanut butter. Finally, use half a grape or dried fruit to make the eyes. Make a smiley face by cutting a banana for the eyes, an orange for the mouth and using raisins to replace a nose. Shape the beetle on the stem using celery, cucumber or carrot for the stem, add peanut butter, and top with some dried fruit like grapes, cranberries or cherries to make the beetle. Grapes, bananas, pineapples or berries are good fruits for kids that can be skewered into sticks in the shape of a worm. With fruit can skewer pieces of melons, apples, oranges and pears. For raw vegetables, zucchini, cucumber, squash, sweet peppers or tomatoes can be used. Decorate half a baked potato in a face shape with sliced ​​cherry tomatoes, peas, and low-fat cheese to create a fun face. Cold fruit is a great dish on hot summer days. Put washed fresh fruits in the freezer like watermelon. Make ice cream sticks from peeled and frozen bananas.

Good juice for children . Prepare a bottle of fresh juice or canned 100% fruit juice for your child to bring and have for lunch instead of soft drinks or other sugary drinks. When taking your child to a restaurant, find and choose fruits like sliced ​​apples, mixed fruit, or 100% juice. A bowl of cereal with home-made berries or a packet of dry fruit and homemade cereal instead of buying it will limit the amount of salt or preservatives in the packaged product. Let children prepare their own dishes including vegetables and fruits that are good for children. Let your child name new vegetables or fruits. Let your child decorate and arrange vegetables or fruits into fun shapes.

7. How to keep good vegetables and fruits safe for children to use?

Use vegetables and fruits that are good for children only if they are washed and stored well before eating.
Always wash fruits and vegetables before preparing and eating them. Place fruits and vegetables under running water and rub vigorously with your hands, then drain or dry with a clean towel. When shopping, preparing or storing in the refrigerator, vegetables and fruits should be kept separate from raw foods such as livestock, poultry, and seafood. Eating vegetables and fruits is good for children, they provide many essential nutrients. There are a variety of kid-friendly vegetables and fruits. Let's practice and help children form the habit of eating fruits and vegetables regularly to have good health and limit diseases from processed foods.
In addition to nutrition, parents should supplement children with supporting products containing lysine, essential micro-minerals and vitamins such as zinc, chromium, selenium, and B vitamins to help fully meet nutritional needs. substances in children. At the same time, these essential vitamins also support digestion, enhance nutrient absorption, help improve anorexia, help children eat well, and develop comprehensively.
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References:choosemyplate.gov