subject: Cooking For Your Picky Eater [print this page] Creating meals that will please a picky eater isn't always easy - in fact, it's downright challenging. Every parent wants to serve healthy foods that their children will actually be willing to eat, but when your picky eater is refusing anything resembling a vegetable, keeping it balanced and healthy becomes even harder.
Finding creative ways to serve healthy meals doesn't have to give you a daily headache. Try some of these easy ideas to add healthy kicks to foods kids - even the picky ones - love to eat.
For the Love of Pizza
Ok, so pizza doesn't make most parents' list of healthy foods conducive to a healthy diet. But that's mainly because you are thinking of that greasy pizza covered with unhealthy toppings you pay too much to have delivered. Pizza can be really healthy if you do it right, and your kids will be so excited, they probably won't notice the difference.
A homemade pizza allows you to control the grease and the toppings too.
Start with a healthier base for your pizza with a whole-wheat crust. You can make it yourself or buy it frozen to keep it simple. Top your pizza with a homemade or jarred sauce, and then pile on the veggies. If you put the cheese on top of the veggies, your kids will have eaten them before they even notice they are there. Great healthy pizza topping ideas include mushrooms, peppers, spinach, and tomatoes. Experiment with different sauces too - it doesn't have to be a tomato sauce!
Perk Up Your Pasta
Most picky eaters will still down a bowl of spaghetti or macaroni and cheese in a hurry. These meals are perfect for adding some healthy servings of vegetables and other nutritious foods. Thinly chopped spinach is easy to add to pasta sauce, as are mushrooms and carrots. Bake your pasta into a casserole with some cheese on top, and your picky eater probably won't even notice there's broccoli or cauliflower in there too.
Cold pasta salads are a great place to add carrots, cucumbers, peppers and more. If your picky eater hasn't tried pasta cold before, the novelty might make this choice a winner. Be sure to cook with whole wheat pasta for a great dose of fiber in your child's diet.
Double Up on the Fruit
If your child, like many, will eat fruit but not vegetables, try to get as many healthy varieties of fruit as you can manage into what you serve up. Pancakes topped with berries - excellent. Pancakes with mashed banana in the batter as well as topped with berries - even better.
Serve up fruit salads and add fruit to cereals and yogurt. Although it won't entirely make up for the lack of vegetables, the more varied fruit choices your child eats, the more different vitamins and minerals will be ingested. Smoothies are a great choice for extra servings of fruit, and you can even sneak the odd vegetable in there without your child even noticing.
Creative cooking is the key to dealing with a picky eater. Take the dishes you know your child will eat, and look for ways to tweak them to increase the nutritional value without tipping your child off to your secret healthy plans. Just about every favorite food can be taken up a notch and made healthier, and with a picky eater on your hands, you have nothing to lose!
