Annabel's Top Tips
Fresh Ingredients
Processed food provides three quarters of the saturated fat and salt that we eat, so the single most effective thing that you can do to improve your child’s diet is to cut back on these foods and prepare more meals yourself from fresh ingredients.
Breakfasts
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Don’t let your child skip breakfast. Give some cereal or bread and try to include one calcium rich protein food like milk or cheese. Eggs are great for breakfast and you can give them scrambled, boiled or poached or make pancakes or eggy bread. And don’t forget to include some fresh fruit or give a fruit juice or smoothie to drink. Remember that in order to absorb iron from cereal you need to give vitamin C like a glass of orange juice or some berry fruits
Healthy Junk Food
Realistically its hard to say ‘no’ to junk food so try making your own healthy junk food using good quality meat for burgers, English muffins for pizza bases and a good way to coat home made fish fingers is to dip them in seasoned flour, beaten egg and crushed cornflakes.
5 a day
Remember your 5 a day and include lots of variety. Different coloured fruits and veg contain different nutrients and the more colourful they are generally the better they are for you as the pigment contains antioxidants that protect us from disease. Steaming or microwaving vegetables ensures that you don’t lose nutrients. Boiling vegetables like broccoli halves their vitamin C content.
Frozen Veg
Frozen vegetables are good – they often contain more nutrients than fresh because they are frozen within hours of being picked.
Potatoes
Choose baked potatoes or boiled new potatoes rather than chip. If you do buy frozen chips, oven chips are lower in fat, and its best to choose the thick-cut variety as they absorb less fat. Sweetcorn or corn on the cob makes a good alternative to potatoes and it provides fibre as well as one portion of your 5 a day.
