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Increasing nutrient density in a child's diet


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Does anyone else here have advice on increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in children or if there are some key foods/nutrients I should make sure they have? My kids already love fattier nutritious foods like egg yolks, salmon and grass fed milk. They are also fans of cut crunchy veggies and fruit. We'll do a smoothie with kale, spinach, carrots, peaches, berries and flax milk with collagen that they really like. They will often skip any cooked veggies with the exception of green beans and or any type of squash. I supplement with a multivitamin that is mostly bioavailable, they also get fish oil and an occasional probiotic. Do you have any specific tips or recipes that your kids love or you think children may like?  

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Sounds like you’ve covered almost everything- that’s pretty impressive to have children eating what you have already described.

A couple of other ‘must consume’ foods on my list are nuts; in particular walnuts and almonds.  1oz (1/4cup) of mixed nuts per day will get the job done.

Next item is a form of cooked tomato or food that contains tomato paste for bioavailable lycopene.  Salsa and even V8 juice are decent to this end.

 I also think ground flaxseed is very useful- loaded with ALA form of omega 3’s, fibre, minerals- you can sprinkle this on cereal or sneak it into pancake mix and kids don’t seem to mind.

Edited by Clinton
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  • 4 weeks later...

Please also make sure your children exercise plenty! I have seen a lot of wealth disparity in my life and interestingly enough exercise and activity can be a large factor for children and youth. For example, I have seen many very well off families with perfect nutrition, medical specialists, etc have kids who grow up healthy but simply but did not exercise enough and you can still see the impact of that later on in their life. On the other end, I have met MANY kids from poor neighborhoods and families through my job as a high school educator and there are a bunch who eat like garbage but are physical and athletic beasts because they don't have anything else to do but play football or basketball 24/7. Of course there are genetics at play and different factors of separate lifestyles, but if my studies have taught me anything, it's that children are ripe for the picking when it comes to being able to influence our genetics and our future health. 

Children are supposedly able to gain or lose fat cells more readily, which then freezes at some point in puberty or early adulthood. This is why people who go through childhood and puberty as obese may simply have more fat cells in their body which shrink and expand, thus giving them a lifelong challenge due to poor choices (mainly due to the parents of course). My knowledge of this is limited but I will try to find the studies and research.

So please if you truly want your children to have the best lifespans and future get them involved with sports, flexibility activities and even simple leisure activities like hiking or cross country skiing. Installing these habits and routines into their brain when they are young will help them stay healthy for a lifetime and will ultimately help them make more conscious health choices in the future. 

Not trying to say you don't do this already OP, this is more of a general post about children and health. You obviously care about them a lot and they are very lucky to have a parent who gives them all of this nutritious food  and cares about their health so deeply!

Edited by AndreasAsmuss
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