4 Foods It’s Best To Keep Away From Your Child

A mothers work is never done – between getting them to dress, sleep, eat, behave; and then find time for yourself too, it’s easy to get complacent. Sometimes ease just triumphs, and that’s okay. The kinds of foods your kids love the most (and are the easiest to make for them) are sometimes the unhealthiest, though. Here’s a simple guide to keep in mind if you think they might be indulging in these items a little too much lately. Scroll down!

Nutella

Nutella has become that essential component in every breakfast, school lunch, and mid day snack. Kids welcome it with open arms, and it’s easy to throw together. These are the facts. Here are some more: Nutella is extremely high in fat and calories. Two tablespoons of Nutella contain 21 grams of sugar, which is more than the amount of sugar in most candy bars or donuts. To put that 21 grams into context, the daily recommended sugar allowance for an adult woman is somewhere around 25 grams.

Alternative: Some easy recipes to replace Nutella could be honey butter on toast, or nut butters. You’ll find both of these at your nearest grocery store, too!

French Fries

French fries have been a staple part of every kids diet growing up. Those towering plates of thin, roughly cut, home made fries we would consume for lunch every day bring up a whole lot of nostalgia for all of us. It’s hard to resist the urge to fry our foods but the truth is it just isn’t great for our hearts. When we fry white potatoes the starch and carbohydrates quickly convert into sugar in our body.

Alternative: Try making baked potatoes! Even better, sweet potatoes provide more fibre and nutrients than normal potatoes. 

Juice Packs

It’s easy to think these are great alternatives to cold drinks, which everyone explicitly knows are terrible for little kids. Oftentimes store bought juices have very few nutrients, and almost the same amount of sugar packed in! Drinks super high in sugar cause fluctuations in our blood sugar levels, and can make children agitated and hyperactive, followed by a big crash. This affects their sleep cycle, which in turn becomes a problem for you.

Alternatives: Flavoured vitamin water! Extremely easy to find, very economical, and we’re sure your kids will take to them immediately. 

Nuggets

The pickiest of eaters will eat nuggets easily. That’s a hard bargain to pass up! I have a sneaking suspicion you probably have little box of nuggets sitting in your freezer right now, too. Let’s talk about what’s in them. The chicken is a gross little lie. They have to blend white meat, dark meat, and chicken skin to get that perfect shape and colour. Fillers like starch are added to hold it all together. 

A professor of Paediatrics at the University of Mississippi dissected a sample of chicken nuggets and found that nuggets were 50 percent meat, and the rest was fat, blood vessels, connective tissue and ground bones.

Alternative: Make and bread your own chicken tenders at the start of the week and freeze them! This one requires a little bit of effort, but it pays off, and afterwards you have a weeks worth of healthier nuggets to whip out whenever you child gets hungry.

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