Raw food diet for children

Goodbye, fast food! Hello, naturalness!

Raw food is a natural, tasty and varied alternative. Children in particular need to provide their bodies with the vital nutrients they need for growth, good health and an active mind. And you won't find this in fast food restaurants.

Many children love to pick an apple from the tree or pull a carrot out of the ground and eat it straight away. If you grow up with food that is as natural and unprocessed as possible, you learn to appreciate the natural, fresh flavours of nature from the very beginning.

Discovering food and developing your own flavour

First things first: "It's healthy and has lots of vitamins" is unfortunately an argument that children are immune to. So parents need to be a little more creative in their approach. It is very important not to exert any pressure. If a child doesn't like something, they shouldn't have to eat it. This is because forcing them to eat something only increases their dislike.

Eating should be fun. Let your child try out for themselves what they like. After all, everyone - including children - has individual preferences that need to be discovered first. And in everything you do, you should always bear this in mind: Children have different needs to adults.

This means that your own diet cannot be transferred one-to-one to a child. Children instinctively feel what is good for them. This is how they develop their own tastes through play.

Taking part instead of watching

Let your children participate in the preparation of meals. Planting sprouts, picking herbs, washing vegetables, cutting fruit - this allows the youngest children to get to grips with their food and build up a relationship with it.

Of course, there are also foods that few children are likely to enjoy pure. Tart leafy greens, for example. However, as they contain lots of minerals, vital substances and fibre, it is important that growing children eat them.

The green smoothie is a great meal. It contains a wealth of vitamins, minerals, trace elements, fibre and other vital substances and is fresh, healthy and delicious. It can be a little sweeter for children, for example with dates or agave syrup. If it tastes good, you want to have it more often.

Victoria Boutenko has a tip for parents whose children have already developed an aversion to green leafy vegetables. The "inventor" of green smoothies recommends a simple trick:

Parents should serve their children the green smoothie in a cup, not a glass. It is best to wait for a moment when the children are distracted. If they try the sweet drink without seeing its green colour, they might like it.*

What goes into the green smoothie?

The green smoothie should consist of one third each of green leafy vegetables, fruit and water. As a general rule, you should not mix too many different types of fruit and vegetables. As a rule of thumb, you can say: one type of green leafy vegetable, one or two types of fruit and one liquid - all in thirds.

Dandelion, spinach, chard, herbs, kale, lamb's lettuce, fennel, alfalfa and clover leaves, for example, combine well with fruit. But basically there are no limits to your imagination. Just try out what you and your children like.

Why are greens so important for children?

Green leafy vegetables can contain magnesium (important for muscle building), calcium (important for teeth and bones), chromium (regulates blood sugar), selenium, iodine, potassium, zinc, sodium, minerals and trace elements.

It also has a high bioavailability of the ingredients. Green leaves contain enzymes and short-chain proteins that the human body can utilise very well.

Throw out the industrial sugar

Children love sweets. Fruit has a natural sweetness thanks to its natural fructose content. And if the food or smoothie isn't sweet enough, you can help it along with dried fruit, agave syrup and apple syrup or - if it doesn't go against your ethical beliefs - honey.

Growing children need natural sweeteners for healthy bone development. What you should ban from your kitchen, however, is refined white industrial sugar. Not only is it acidifying, it also contains no vital substances, minerals, trace elements or enzymes that the body needs to process the sugar. Instead, the white sugar is broken down into acid and fat.

The body wants to neutralise the resulting acid. However, as industrial sugar does not provide it with the necessary tools for this, it draws the necessary vitamins and minerals from the teeth and bones.

Tolerance and understanding are the most important things

It is important for children not only to be shown boundaries, but also to be told exactly why they should not eat certain things. Education is a fundamental pillar. If you explain it to them properly, even children can grasp the extent of an unhealthy diet and make a conscious decision not to eat fruit gums and pizza.

Don't just forbid your children to eat certain foods. Offer healthy alternatives instead. Eating should be fun. As soon as compulsion comes into play, not only is enjoyment quickly lost, but trust in parents also dwindles.

Resisting the culinary temptations that surround us every day - at school, on the way home, at friends' houses - is an enormous challenge that parents should actively support their children in.

* See: Victoria Boutenko, "Grüne Smoothies - lecker, gesund & schnell zubereitet", Hans-Nietsch-Verlag: 2010