Have Fun with Food

The best way to get your child to try new foods and experiment with food is to have fun with it. Creative food presentation makes a statement with adults as well as children. There's no question that a variety of foods placed on a lovely plate at a place setting is more appealing than eating a meal in its baking dish. Everyone likes to see attractive, colorful, and appealing foods placed in front of them. Start off by letting your children have fun with foods early on. Buy special plates for your kids. Let them buy or make special placemats. Let them use child-sized utensils and cups.

Look for cookbooks written for children. Many foods can be made without baking, and others need only minimal adult supervision. Once your child is old enough to prepare foods himself, let him contribute to tonight's meal. He will be so proud of his creations, he will be more likely to eat them.

It's not necessary to purchase a cookbook to be creative. And there are many ways to have fun with food, even if you do not think you're creative. Here's how:

• Use cookie cutters to make sandwiches or to cut square slices of cheese into shapes.
• Let your child decorate sandwiches with raisins, apples, banana slices, or grapes.
• Plain ice cream cones make a nice alternative to bread. Try filling some with tuna or chicken salad or cottage cheese. Top with a grape or cherry tomato.
• Pizzas are fun. They can be made on pita bread, tortillas, English muffins, or bagels. Add spaghetti sauce and whatever vegetables you like. Top with mozzarella cheese and bake. Fruit pizzas, too, are appealing when made with cream cheese and cut-up fruit.
• Try meatloaf muffins instead of standard meatloaf. Top each meat-muffin with mashed potatoes and add an olive, cherry tomato, or green peas. Also, stab those meatballs with Popsicle® sticks.
• Make decorative straws by cutting shapes from paper plates. Punch holes in the top and bottom and thread through the straw. It's amazing how much better milk tastes through a fun straw.

It is important that you spend time in the kitchen with your child and have fun with food, too. These are the moments that will make family memories last a lifetime.

More on: Nutritional Resources for Families