In her new book, I Can Eat a Rainbow, leading children’s food expert Annabel Karmel brings her healthy message to the littlest readers. Instilling a positive attitude toward food and nutrition at a young age, Annabel paves the way for a lifetime of healthy eating and I Can Eat a Rainbow shows that eating a rainbow of food can be fun.
From Annabel:
Encourage your child to eat a rainbow every day, since different colored fruits and vegetables contain different combinations of nutrients. Did you know that sometimes the more colorful a food is, the better it is for you? For instance, a pink grapefruit is better for you than a white grapefruit. But ever single color is important—red, orange, yellow, green, purple, blue, white, and brown. We need them all for a healthy, balanced diet.
Five a day
It’s important to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables each day. Eating a variety of different colors helps us get all the nutrients we need—and that keeps us strong and healthy. One portion for your child is roughly what she can hold in her hand. And remember that fresh, frozen, canned, and dried all count toward five a day, and that one of those five can be a glass of 100% juice or a smoothie.
Talk to you kids about:
- Their favorite fruits and vegetables
- What fruits and vegetables he’s tried and what he’d like to try
- What fruits and vegetables taste like
- Other foods that are made from fruits and vegetables (ex. hummus from chickpeas)
Things You Can Do to Make Eating Fun
- Let your child try squeezing oranges, tearing the leaves off cabbage, or mixing a salad
- Put a raspberry on each of her fingers and let her eat them
- See how many peas or corn kernels he can pile onto his spoon
- Let her grow foods such as strawberries, zucchini, or tomatoes
- Let him make a vegetable face on a plate and eat it
Food comes in all kinds of flavors and a whole rainbow of colors, from juicy red apples and bright green broccoli to yummy yellow bananas and juicy purple grapes. Get your kids to be happy and healthy by eating a rainbow of food.
Share some of your thoughts on how best to get young children to eat healthy and you could win a copy of Annabel Karmel’s I Can Eat a Rainbow. Gather will draw one participant to receive a free copy. Comments must be posted by Tuesday, May 12th.
Talk to other parents about healthy eating for kids in Parenting.gather.com.
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Comments: 53
An easy way to add carrots is to shred them into tomato (pizza or pasta) sauces while they are cooking. The carrots cook down and add a layer of sweetness to the sauce. This also helps to cut the acidic value of the sauce!
I would love this book for our grandson.
Rachel Ray made a similar sauce on one of her shows this week. I believe she added ricotta, parmesan and hot cooking liquid from the pasta she was boiling. I think I'm going to try adding the cooking water next time I make it.
I need to show my kids that different colored foods are really good for them
"Do you want corn for dinner this week? Ok, please go get me 2 cans of corn -- the store brand please." (Teach them how to check prices -- my 9 year old can tell me which loaf of bread on the rack is cheapest, or whether the store brand pretzels or the pretzels that are on sale are actually least expensive this week.)
The only thing I have found that works it letting the kids help prepare the food. Children are more likely to try something that they have prepared themselves since they put the effort into making it rather than just eating what is put in front of them.
The easiest way to get some veggies into younger children is to cook it, puree it, and add it to things such as meatloaf, hamburgers, and if the veg is orange it is easy to add it to macaroni & cheese (sweet potatoes or butternut squash). Even in some baked goods - such as cookie bars and cakes. It is like adding applesauce.
I have also found that if you cut them up into tiny pieces and stir-fry them with a favorite protein they will eat it because they don't really notice it.
At home, it is easier to get my son to eat better. Once we go out, he tends to eat specific things - pasta with red sauce, cheeseburgers, macaroni & cheese, and grilled cheese. In chinese restaurants he tends to eat just the lo mein. I have started to put other dishes on his plate along with the lo mein so that he tries other things. Less fighting these days. It is easier to just eat it without fighting.
With my oldest son, we made up games and the broccoli would be trees, frozen peas would be snowballs, and apples boats etc. It worked wonders with my oldest son, but my youngest has a mind of his own.
I also remind him that "these are like the green beans you ate at maw-maw's house" and that seems to interest him some.
I finally learned at home to just serve it and eat it in front of him. He ate asparagus the very first time I ever served it to him after I showed him how I ate mine--and that shocked me! He now likes to "crunch" raw veggies like celery and carrots, dip things into dressing/sauces, and pick things off my plate. I can spare some toppings off my salad if it means he's eating more cucumbers and tomatoes.
He still has nights where he won't touch anything and those are the nights I need help with!
Showing Some Love Glitter
The other thing is to keep junk food out of the house and/or limit what comes into the house.
It's all about being smart when the kids are little that adds up in the end.
But she loves to eat carrots raw and just plain with nothing on them and loves to eat beans plain, and loves corn on the cob and well most all veggies, I got lucky to have a child who loves her fruit and veggies.
I would highly suggest planting at least some strawberries or something no matter how small ammount of space you have for growing things.