How to prepare healthy meals for your child: 10 options

If you started with complementary feeding, what we tell you next will come in handy. let’s explain how you can prepare healthy meals for kids with little effort. Want to discover our options?

Food should be included following the recommendations of the pediatrician. It is worth noting that It is during these first moments that the child develops a taste for flavours. Because of this, you should expose your child to a wide variety of flavors.

Obviously, you can adapt the recipes to foods your child has already tried. Remember that it is usually recommended that, when incorporating foods, you do it one by one in order to be able to detect any food allergies.

Prepare healthy meals for children

Before you get down to business and prepare healthy meals for kids at home, it’s important that you be clear about which foods you can incorporate based on your child’s age. Here are some general tips:

• Up to 6 months: The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for up to 6 months. In case of taking a bottle, the incorporation of food can take place between 4 and 6 months.
• Between 6 and 12 months: fruit, vegetables, cereals, legumes, eggs, meat, chicken, fish and olive oil.
• Between 12 and 24 months: soft cheese, yogurt and whole milk.
• Since 3 years: nuts, apple pieces, raw carrot pieces, and any food that could cause a choking hazard.

However, there is no scientific evidence to support introducing food in a specific order, but certain measures must be taken with certain foods, such as crushing nuts to avoid choking and choking.

Tips for healthy cooking for your child

At the time of purchase

• Buy fresh fruits and vegetables: try to use them in a maximum of three days so that they do not lose properties.
• Choose lean meats: A good way to prepare healthy meals for your child is to buy lean meats to avoid excess fat. If necessary, degrease it before cooking. Check with your pediatrician to find out the best options and quantities.

If you opt for Weaning the baby lead (the infant feeds itself by bringing the food to its mouth), instead of purees, remember to present soft and small pieces of meat. Do not forget talk to your doctor about your decision so he can advise you.

at the time of cooking

Hygiene is essential when cooking.

• Remember to wash fruits and vegetables wellclean your work surface and use clean utensils for every meal. It is important to avoid cross-contamination of food.
• Minimize the use of salt when cooking: the amount of salt should be very minimal so that the kidneys of newborns do not pose a danger to their health, as the book points out How to feed the baby.
• Choose olive oil over other fats: olive oil supplies monounsaturated fatty acids, unsaturated fatty acids and also vitamin E. Its consumption is recommended from the beginning of the complementary diet, always in small doses and raw.
• The best cooking options are boiled, baked and pan-friedas long as you use a minimum of fat.

Other ideas

• Use the cooking broth: the cooking broth from vegetables, for example, can be excellent for cooking rice or other cereals such as quinoa. It will give a different (and tasty) flavor to the cereal. Don’t waste it!
• Add milk to purees: If you are preparing your child’s porridge and you notice that it is too solid, instead of incorporating water, opt for milk. You can use milk that your baby consumes regularly, even breast milk.
• Freeze any food you don’t use during the day: A good idea is to use an ice cube tray to freeze small portions of food.

10 healthy meal ideas for your child

baby food

1. Rice With Chicken And Vegetables: Choose your favorite vegetables and boil them together with the chicken pieces until they are cooked. Pick up and reserve. Cook the rice in the cooking broth. When it’s ready, if you want, you can pass it to the blender and make a puree, mash with a fork or serve in chunks.
2. Zucchini cream: Boil a large potato, a large courgette and half an onion (all vegetables must be peeled and cut) until cooked. Use a potato masher or a fork, depending on the texture you want.
3. Lentils With VegetablesPreparation: Boil the lentils together with a peeled and chopped carrot, half a chopped onion and two peeled and seedless tomatoes. When the dish is ready, you can shred or serve as is.
4. Short tagliatelle with tomato sauce: Prepare a gravy with chopped onion, tomato and carrot to add nutrients to short noodles.
5. Vegetable omelette: If you have already incorporated the egg, you can make an omelet with a variety of chopped boiled vegetables and an egg. Easy and delicious!
6. Vegetable puree with fish: Boil a courgette, a small potato, a leek and half an onion together with eighty grams of lean and boned fish. When everything is cooked, pass through the blender.
7. Meatballs and vegetables: These meatballs can be frozen to always have healthy baby food ready in a minute. Boil one carrot, one leek, forty grams of green beans and forty grams of lean meat. Eliminate the excess water, crush and form your meatballs. Instead of frying, bake.

Sweets for the baby

1. Porridge from apples, pears and bananasPreparation: cook an apple together with a pear, both peeled, de-seeded and cut into cubes. When tender, drain and blend them together with the banana. If you want a more liquid fruit porridge, add the milk your child usually drinks. Don’t add sugar.
2. banana and orange: This cake is very easy. Mash a banana with a fork and mix it with the juice of half an orange. Ready!
3. yoghurt with fruit: insert a fruit porridge or simply pieces of fresh fruit into the yoghurt. Your baby will love it!

In short, preparing healthy meals for your child is not complicated. You just have to choose healthy ingredients and opt mainly for fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and whole grains, e.g cook them without adding fat, excess sodium or sugar.

Remember that your child’s stomach is small, so you shouldn’t force him to eat. What seems like little food to you may be more than enough for him. Doctors recommend letting the child guide the intake according to their needs.

The post How to prepare healthy meals for your child: 10 options appeared first in research-school.