Healthy, Nutritious, and Delicious To A 2-Year-Old?!?

It is pretty darn hard making food that is healthy and nutritious when you are working 80 hours a week in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) or 50 hours plus commuting in clinic. Add to that the eating preferences of a 2 year old and you have very stressful situations at least several times a week.

Before, I get into what has worked for us, I raise a question to my fellow MiMs and readers: what has worked for you? Please share recipes, links, prayers, spells, themes or anything else you have found useful.  With the ever rising obesity and dental caries epidemics, O and I are always trying to provide Zo with healthy options. When I have patients in clinic with body mass indexes (BMIs) consistently over the 70th percentiles and disturbing rates of weight gain, and the parents report the child’s favorite foods as “pizza and chicken nuggets,” I cringe. I know it’s hard to get your kid to eat what they need, but it’s worth it, their lives depend on it. And as a doctor, and especially as a Pediatrician, I make it my job to practice what I preach.

Here are a few of our favorites here at the Beehive: - we prepare what we want to eat (tuna salad, stir fry, slow cooker beans and rice, chicken noodle soup, etc) and then we chop it up, add a bit of cheese, pan fry it on a tortilla and make a toddler-friendly quesadilla that Zo can dip into his favorite Trader-Joe’s garlic-chipotle salsa - breakfast: greek yogurt with raisins and honey, oatmeal with raisins and molasses, handfuls of raisins (theme = Zo loves raisins) - lunch: turkey sandwiches with baby spinach, hummus with crackers and grapes - anytime: hummus by the spoonfuls, oatmeal, Greek yogurt - when all else fails: his favorite smoothies (said by Zo as a “I want smoo-deeeeee”) option 1 with ripened frozen bananas, a few apple/pear slices, a heaping handful of spinach, milk/ice, and a drizzle of honey or option 2 with ripened frozen bananas, 2 heaping tablespoons of organic peanut butter, milk/ice, ½ cup of raw old-fashioned oatmeal, ½ teaspoon of cinnamon, a splash of vanilla.

Hope you enjoy some of our favorites and I look forward to hearing what works for you.

Originally posted on www.mothersinmedicine.com