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As you try to juggle between the nutritional needs of each family member, understanding how you can balance between healthy portions and nutritious foods can help to make feeding your family easier.
It is vital for people of all ages to eat a balanced diet. For your kids, a healthy diet will help them to grow and develop. You also need to eat nutritious foods as you get older to give you the energy the body needs and fight health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and some types of cancer.
How to Serve Healthy Meals to Your Family
Include fruits and vegetables
You’re obviously aware that fruits and vegetables are good sources of essential vitamins and minerals. They contain high levels of fiber and are low in fat and calories. Providing fresh fruits and vegetables to your family will reduce their risk of certain diseases like obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
To ensure that your family stays healthy, you can help them to eat more veggies and fruits by adding these nutritious foods to your diet. You can do this by:
- Adding blueberries or sliced banana to morning cereal
- Including slices of cucumber, tomato, and lettuce in your sandwiches
- Provide your family members with a fruit smoothie for breakfast and lunch. You can also offer it as a dessert.
It’s important to note that children don’t have to consume all their fruits and veggies in just one serving. They will be more likely to adopt the new diet if it is spread out.
Include proteins, dairy, and grains in your diet
Apart from fruits and veggies, your family will need other types of foods for them to stay healthy. These foods include:
Proteins: As children grow their protein demands increase. You can get protein from spicy low carb blackened shrimp [7], poultry, eggs, cheese, milk, beans, and nuts.
Dairy foods: These are a good source of Vitamin D, calcium, and protein. However, get low-fat versions of yogurt, milk, and cheese. In case you don’t want dairy sources of these nutrients, you can get calcium from fish and dark-green leafy vegetables like spinach.
Whole grains: Ensure that you consume whole grains. Therefore, always check the labels that the wheat, corn, rice, or oats you want to purchase says “whole grain.”
Cut sugar intake
According to the American Heart Association [8], children should not ingest more than 25 grams (6 teaspoons) of sugar a day. While it may be easy to cut back on your child’s intake of sugary foods, most foods that we consume, including bread, fast foods, and soups contain hidden sugars.
You can cut your family’s sugar intake by:
- Cutting out sweetened beverages: A can of soda contains more than ten spoons of sugar.
- Make your own treats: You can make popsicles from fresh fruit juice and use frozen fruits as a topping.
- Reduce consumption of processed and fast foods: These can include cakes and cookies from the store. Instead, you may want to bake yours using a recipe with less sugar.
Bottom Line
There are several benefits that come from providing your kids good nutrition [9]. Therefore, ensure that your family diet includes fruits and vegetables, proteins, dairy, and whole grains. Also, cut on sugar and salt intake.
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