Healthy Desserts for Kids

Dessert is magical.

• Used the wrong way, dessert can make kids eat more dinner.  Want to know why this is wrong? Read Wheelin' & Dealin': 10 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Trade Peas For Pie.

• Used the right way, dessert can transform how your kid eats. Read Dishing Up Dessert.

In order to get dessert working for you, you've got to take it down a peg or two.  In most homes, dessert has way too much power.

Kids want dessert.  And, knowing this:

• If you are parenting a picky eater, you probably use dessert to pressure your kids to eat more than than they want.  

• If you are parenting an overeater, you probably try to restrict your child's access to dessert.

Research shows that pressure and restriction are parenting strategies that don't work.

You don't have to ditch dessert.  Just neutralize it.

1. Serve dessert every night.  Read Dessert: How I LOVE Thee.
2. Establish the rule that everyone who wants dessert gets it—no matter how well they've eaten.
3. If dessert has a lot of power in your home, consider serving it at the same time as the main meal.

And then...change what you serve for dessert.

Serve fruit, yogurt, cheese or other healthy foods for dessert most nights, and sweet desserts only occasionally.

Need some ideas?  You don't have to serve fruit straight-up.

You can add a sprinkle of cinnamon, a dash of vanilla, or a dusting of powdered sugar to fresh fruit such as bananas, kiwi, oranges, cantaloupe, grapes, apples, mango, pear, cherries, blueberries...

Got a little more energy?

• Grilled Pineapple
• Mixed Berry Salad with Mint
• Vanilla-Roasted Peaches with Raspberries
• Broiled Plums with Marscapone Cream
• Mango-Lime Rocotta Parfaits
• Fresh Papaya with Coconut-Lime Yogurt  
• Baked Apples
• Roasted Fruit
• Blueberries with Maple Whipped Cream
• Apricot Fig Compote
• Carmelized Pears
• Carmelized Apples with Fresh Rosemary
• Orange Sections with Mint Leaves & Honey
• Carmelized Pineapple with Honey and Yogurt
• Mixed Berries, Apples and Bananas
• Puree of Apples and Blackcurrents

Many of these ideas came from Martha Stewart.com, others came from one of my favorite family cookbooks, Chef Bobo's Good Food Cookbook. (Every recipe in this book is a winner with kids—even the cauliflower soup. I kid you not.)

Want some ideas for serving yogurt? Read The Magic of Yogurt.

Change what you serve for dessert and you'll change how you and your kids interact around dinner.

You might even change how you interact during the course of the entire day. Less stress.  More success.  

There are so many kinds of fruit that you could have something different every night for a month. If you're willing to cook the fruit, you'll be able to offer variety every night for 2 months (or more).

But, if your kids do get bored with fruit dessert, consider your strategy a success—it's a sign that you've neutralized the biggest bully on the block.

And, it's a sign that you've taught your kids the habits they'll need for a lifetime of healthy eating. 

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

Kid Eats Q&A: What do you think of Fruit Pearls?

Have you heard of Fruit Pearls?

I hadn't.  But Linnea, a reader in Austin, Texas, wrote to me about them. This is what she had to say. 

Why I like Fruit Pearls:

• My toddler asked for "pink ice cream" at 7pm, after a very long day and was satisfied with this choice. (Of course, I took him to Sprouts to go "out for ice-cream."  I was stacking the deck in favor of nutrition.)
• Portion controlled 
• Sugar content was 9g
• Has frozen "beads" of fruit juice mixed with flash frozen citrus. - freaky, but the innovation was interesting to my toddler and a lot less messy!

Why I won't be buying them a lot:

• Not cheap
• The "beads" probably need to be kept at a constant temperature - which my home freezer probably cannot provide.

I did not try any of the yogurt or chocolate versions yet.. but I am feeling victorious tonight.  There has to be a catch, right?  So, what do you say?

1) It’s practically heretical to suggest this, but I don’t think the most important question to consider when assessing a new food is how nutritious or healthy it is.

I wouldn't worry about stacking the deck in the favor of nutrition when it comes to sweets and treats.

I really believe that there is a time and a place in everyone's diet for everything.  Read Why I feed my daughter inferior food. 

What's more, sometimes, when you "healthify" junk food, it can be more difficult to teach kids how to put junk food into their diets in an appropriate way.  ("Why can't I eat this as often as I want if it's healthy?)   Read Cookies and the Cycle of Guilty Eating.

2) The question I always ask is: What lessons or habits will this food teach my child?

Linnea, "didn't try to pass this off as fruit or ice cream." That's good news. I agree with the idea that Fruit Pearls aren't fruit—even though they're made with fruit. 

In fact, oranges and/or tangerines are the first ingredient in every flavor....even the Chocolate Fruit Pearls.  Strange, but true.

Still, eating Fruit Pearls won't teach your kids a thing about eating fruit. Fruit Pearls don't look, taste, feel, or in any way, resemble read fruit.

But Linnea: Why not call Fruit Pearls ice cream?  Fruit Pearls are eaten like ice cream, popsicles, and sorbet. That is what I would call them.

You can "nutrition-up" foods, but you cannot reclassify them.  Ice cream-like foods teach kids an ice cream habit. Read When is a cookie NOT a cookie? and Donuts vs. Muffins.

That's why I was glad to hear, Linnea, that you told your toddler this was a sometimes treat...just like ice cream.

 3) If you think of Fruit Pearls as an ice cream alternative, it doesn’t matter which flavor you buy.  

Some of the flavors have relatively few ingredients. Others? Well, not so much.

• Lemon has 6 ingredients.
• Banana Berry has 29 ingredients (even more if you count the ingredients that go into some of the ingredients such as go into the yogurt).

All the flavors have added sugar.  

• Banana Berry contains sugar, liquid sugar, corn syrup, and dextrose.
• Other flavors are made with sugar and fruit juice concentrate...a euphamism for added sugar. 

Read about what the FDA has to say about added sugars.

One caveat: If you have a child who won’t go near a fruit no matter what, you CAN use Fruit Pearls as an introduction to fruits. 

I know it’s unconventional but sometimes you’ve got to meet your child where he’s at.   

• Have your child explore the different fruit flavors. 
• Then move on to other fruit-flavored items. 
• Next do taste comparisons with these different "fruit" items. 
• Do taste comparisons with the real deal.   Small tastes.
• Finally, shift to serving fruit regularly, and "fruit" items occasionally.

Read The Road Less Traveled.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~ 

Kid Eats Q&A: What do you think of puree pouches?

Puree pouches are all the rage right now.

And not just for little kids either. My almost 11 year old daughter squeezes one into her mouth for snack at least twice a week.

 

That's why I was particularly glad to get this question from Molly.

What is your opinion of what we call around our house "mish mash," those little pouches of pureed fruits or fruit-and-veggie combos, usually organic, that are sold by Plum, Ellas, Trader Joe's, etc. that kids eat/suck straight from the pouch?  My kids freaking love these things-- they'd eat them multiple times a day if I let them (though I limit them to one per day, because they're not cheap!), they don't have sugar, and we always get the kind that have some kind of veggies in them (e.g., spinach peas & pears; or apple carrot), so I think of it as a way to get a little more veggies in their diet.  

The problem with puree pouches is that they lull parents into thinking their children are eating fruits and vegetables.  They're not. 

OK, technically, there are fruits and vegetables in these pounches.  Typically, more fruit than veggies. But even if these pouches were packed to the spout with peas and carrots I would still advise people to tread carefully. 

• To the extent that puree pouches replace other kinds of snacks—Goldfish crackers, cookies, fruit strips, etc.—they're a nutritional, and a habits, step up.  (That's why I use them.) 

• However, puree pouches won't teach your children to eat fruits and vegetables—the real kind—because purees don't have the same look, taste, or mouth-feel as the real deal.

To the extent that purees satisfy parents that their kids are eating fruits and vegetables (at least minimally), puree pouches have the power to move kids away from real fruits and vegetables.

 How?

1. Kids get used to eating puree pouches.
2. Parents are happy.
3. Kids start to reject actual vegetables; they don't taste as sweet, they're not as much fun...
4. Parents panic that their kids aren't eating right and resort to puree pouches more frequently.
5. Kids get used to eating puree pouches.
6. Many kids start to demand them.

This is particularly true if you are parenting a picky or a sensory sensitive eater. 

Research shows that purees don't control hunger as well as actual fruit.

In at least one study, apples have been shown to increase satiation more than applesauce and more than apple juice. No matter what manufacturers try to sell you, different forms of fruit are not equivalents.

They're not equivalent when it comes to shaping kids' habits either.

It's not just that the apples have more fiber. There's something about chewing on the whole fruit that works magic. It's eating whole fruit that is the habit you want to foster.

Read An Apple a Day? and Should Your Kids Drink Their Veggies?

Puree Pouches are a good snack option if they are part of a snack rotation. 

I strongly advocate that parents implement The Rotation Rule: No identical foods two days in a row.  

The Rotation Rule is vitally important because it: 

• Continually exposes children to different tastes and textures.
• Prevents kids from "locking" onto a few foods. 
• Reinforces the idea of eating different foods on different days (and this lays the foundation for new food acceptance).
• Is a power-sharing tool. (You set the structure with a rotation; your kids decide the specifics.) 

Variety is the only thing researchers have consistently found that counters the inclination toddlers have to narrow what they eat.

Remember, variety doesn't mean new. It means different.  You can serve different snacks simply by rotating through what your child already eats.  

• Use both traditional snack foods and meal items to expand the rotation.
• Consciously rotate through foods with different tastes and textures.

Read How Brands Bite You in the Butt! and House Building 101.

When it comes to puree pouches, nothing is what it seems.

Happy Tot Spinach, Mango & Pear is made from more Pear than Mango, and more Mango than Spinach.  It should be called Pear, Mango & Spinach, but it probably wouldn't sell as well. (Ingredients are listed in proportional order.)

Happy Morning Super Banana Breakfast Smoothie contains more Apple than Banana—and a whole lot of other stuff too.

Organic Apple, Organic Banana, Water (for Protein Addition), Organic Mangosteen, Organic Whey Protein Concentrate, Dehydrated Organic Nonfat Yogurt (Organic Nonfat Milk Solids, Lactic Acid, Cultures, Natural Flavor), Organic Salba (Sahi Alba 911 & 912 Registered Varieties of Chia Seed) (Chia), Organic Quinoa, Malic Acid, Organic Natural Mangosteen Flavor, Pectin, Ascorbic Acid [Vitamin C].

And yes, Molly, even Ella's Broccoli, Pears, and Peas is made from more Pears than Peas and more Peas than Broccoli.

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but don't despair.  

You can still pack a pouch when you're on the go. Just don't do it every day.

 

And remember, think of puree pouches as a crappy-snack alternative, not a substitute for actual veggies. You'll be teaching your kids the truth, and shaping their habits for a lifetime of healthy eating.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

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Source: Flood-Obbagy, J. E. and B. J. Rolls. 2009. “The Effect of Fruit in Different Forms on Energy Intake and Satiety At a Meal.” Appetite 52: 416-22.