Keep Pesticides Out of Baby Food

Sometimes we end up doing the worst thing possible for our kids even if we were trying to the best thing possible. Let's take the example of the mother who is making her own juice or pureeing her own baby food in an attempt to have her kids be as healthy possible. She might be buying all kinds of healthy foods and vegetables and even juicing and grinding them up in an effort to extract the most nourishment possible for her child without knowing at all that what she is really doing is adding a potent mix of pesticides to the food.

One way to make sure that you are not adding pesticides to your child's food is to scrub unpeeled vegetables under running water as thoroughly as possible before serving them. Make sure you teach your children how to do this as well. This is a good habit that they need to pick up and maintain for life to reduce their exposure to pesticides.

You should also explain to your children the importance of peeling fruits and vegetables. Be sure to remove the outer leaves of vegetables like lettuce and cabbage and only eat the inside as the most pesticides are sprayed on the outside of the vegetable

Some foods are more difficult to wash. Soak foods like strawberries, grapes, broccoli, spinach and lattice for a few minutes and then rinse them a few times to make sure they pesticide free.

It is also a good idea to trim animal fat from meat because pesticides tend to gather in the fat. Remove the skins from chicken as chicken skin absorbs the pesticides from the grain that chickens are fed.

You should also look for locally grown produce when you shop as it is the least likely to be sprayed with pesticides and waxes. Fruits and vegetables that come from a long ways away tend to have more chemicals sprayed on them so they will survive the trip.

Foods that have the highest levels of pesticides include celery, peaches, apples, blueberries, bell peppers, spinach, cherries, grapes, greens, kale, collard greens potatoes and strawberries.

Do your children a favor and explain to them why they should wash all of their vegetables as well as eat foods in season. Foods that are grown out of season usually come from another hemisphere and are loaded with more pesticides.

How to Get Your Toddler to Eat Healthy Foods

If you can get your toddler to look forward to meals and sit still and eat then that is half the battle towards establishing healthy eating patterns in the child for the future. Most toddlers are very messy and distractible so this is always a big challenge. Be sure to invest in a good bib, a high chair that is easy to clean and a floor mat. It is also advisable not to wear your best clothes while feeding toddlers. They have been known to throw things!

Toddlers should also not be forced to eat. This makes them think that eating is all about control. Instead be gentle, friendly and offer the toddler food. Let him or her make the decision about what is going to go in the mouth.

It is okay to encourage your baby to play with his or her food. You can cut the food up so that it is attractive and looks like sticks, trees or other fun shapes. You can even get little plastic cookie cutters for making shapes out of soft foods. Making little landscapes or faces out of foods by arranging them in certain ways on the plate is also appealing to them.

You should also not use food as a bargaining chip to get dessert or play time. Food should never be used as a punishment or a road. This can lead to eating too much or disorders like bulimia and anorexia later in life.

Never shame your child at mealtimes. You never want your baby to associate meal time with stress. This could make the baby avoid eating. He or she could end up being overweight or have emotional issues around food.

Be sure to keep your mealtimes twenty minutes or shorter. Do not try to keep a toddler who will not stay in a chair there. They simply will have an ego struggle with you. They do not have the attention span to learn real discipline at this age.

You should also resign yourself to the fact that a toddler's appetite will simply not be the same very day. They also do things like binge on one food, like bananas, for days on end and then refuse to eat anything. Do not worry. Your toddler is probably not going to be malnourished unless it goes on for weeks on end. It is normal for them to be temperamental eaters.