Medicine: Simple Nutritious Toddler Foods
Let me begin each post about pediatrics and medicine with the reality that each child is unique and most things do not need rigid formulas to follow. The recommendations I share are from current scientific literature, pediatric practice, and personal experience. It is important to have your own relationship with your personal pediatrician and advice offered here does not replace that.
My hope is that these posts will give you ideas, options, and simple to implement recommendations.
What our children eat, how much they eat or don’t eat, and a desire for them to eat the right things and avoid the wrong things are all things moms can spend a lot of time researching and discussing. Honestly, it can be confusing to read different recommendations with varying proportions of protein/carbs/fat. Trying to translate all of the recommendations into the practical day to day can be overwhelming.
My goal for recommendations is simple and practical. Instead of focusing on what to avoid and feeling guilty if you don’t avoid those foods, I find it easier to focus on what to include. So here are some simple nutritious foods that would be great to include in your toddler’s diet. You can incorporate them into any meal or snack of the day.
blueberries
spinach
avocado
yogurt
lentils
kiwi
carrots (quartered lengthwise and cut in small pieces or steamed)
One of the advantages of the above foods is they are also very easy to blend together into a smoothie. I love the simplest clean up too, so putting the above foods into a thick glass or jar and blending with an immersion blender, means the only thing to clean is to put your immersion piece into the dishwasher.
There are many other healthy foods, but the above is a simple nutrient dense list. It can take many times eating a new food to develop a taste for it, so keep offering these healthy foods to your toddler. You can cut them into bite size pieces and make a fun face on the plate to add an element of whimsy too!