MYNASHVILLE BEAUTY & HEALTH
Brain Food
Smart Food For Your Kids
By Rachel Schmitz
A
s a parent I try to do everything possible to help my child, especially when it comes to school. One of the easiest things I like to do to help give the little one a boost is to try and feed her some good old-fashioned brain food. It can be a little bit of a struggle to help your child eat right so here are some tricks to hide healthy food in plain sight. One of the best things for your brain health is eating salmon. If you have the same problem I do, you’ll know that kids can be a little weary of that pink fish, so I hide it in things she already loves. One of my favorite things to do is to make salmon salad sandwiches in place of tuna. She doesn’t even give it a second look. Just use your left-over salmon from dinner, or you can even use the canned version. Just make it the same way you would a tuna sandwich. Sometimes I’ll even use a little cream cheese instead of mayo. I also like adding salmon to soup or even making salmon burgers. I found the best way is to just use salmon as a replacement for the things my child already loves.
Whole grains are another important food to help boost brain power. This is another hard one to incorporate, especially when it comes to sliced bread. Kids see that brown healthy-looking bread, and they turn their noses up to it. The way I get around it is to purchase white whole-wheat bread. It is still whole-wheat, but they use a different type of grain that makes the bread look like regular old white bread. The only thing you have to make sure to do is to read the label. You have to make sure you read the word “whole-
20
wheat” if it says “white-wheat” it is not the same thing. The word whole is the key. This way you kid won’t even realize that they are eating a healthier product. Colorful veggies are another great addition to your child’s diet. These are a little harder to hide, but when you can, it adds a great brain health
boost. One of my favorite ways is to add veggies to spaghetti sauces, I make a vegetarian sauce with bell peppers, carrots and pears. When I make it for myself, I leave the veggies thinly slice, but when I am trying to hide them in plain sight, I stick the sauce in the blender after everything is cooked, and the little ones don’t even know the difference. If you want to make it even healthier you can make your noodles out of zucchini or squash.
MYNASHVILLE MAGAZINE 615-283-7495 WWW.MYNASHVILLEMAGAZINE.COM
There are a lot of great things you can feed your kid to help them mentally and physically; the key is to not always let them know what there eating. Once they get used to it and love the things you are feeding them, you can slowly let them know that they are eating. Then they won’t be so timid about eating things that are good for them.