February 13, 2013
Healthy Valentine’s Day Options for Your Kids
We are a country that likes to attribute a lot of our health issues and other medical situations to genetics. As families brought together by adoption we know that while important, genetics are not the only thing guiding the growth of our children. That is our job, as parents. That is why our amazing birth mothers trusted us to love and raise their children as our own, and that is why we have a responsibility to these children to healthfully nurture them to the best of our ability.
As you’ll see in our upcoming February newsletter, our family have gotten very interested in organic, unprocessed foods and have been working hard to ensure that our children are nourished with foods free of chemicals, dyes and other over-processed ingredients that are literally a cancer to good health. Valentine’s Day is typically laden with candy, sweets and other not-so-amazing-for-you things, and when your children are surrounded by this, it can be difficult to encourage (and get them to join in on) excitement for healthy alternatives to typical Valentine’s Day fare.
To prepare for tomorrow, we went around to some of our favorite healthy family food blogs for some tips and tricks on how to keep your child’s Valentine’s Day clean and unprocessed. What we found looks so good, I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep these treats to just Valentine’s Day.
Lisa Leakes of 100 Days of Real Food is one of our favorite family food bloggers out there. Over 3 years ago she decided to take her family off processed food for 100 days to see what would happen. It was such a life-changing experience, they haven’t turned back since. In addition to seeing healthy benefits all around, their new diet also got rid of one of their daughters’ asthma. The fact that many childhood ailments can be cured with a whole foods diet is something we should all be thinking about as parents. Anyhow! Today, Lisa posted some amazing recipes for whole foods snacks, including heart-shaped fruit on a stick and whole wheat brownies. We recommend checking them out!
Our kids LOVE fruit. We are very very blessed with two voracious fruit eaters. Here’s a great recipe for a fruit salsa and baked cinnamon pita chips. (Bonus points if you cut the pita into hearts before you bake them!)
Why do Valentine’s Day gifts at school have to be candy? Check out this idea for a Valentine’s Day “You Rule” ruler. Handy and adorable.
For more healthy and fun DIY ideas, check out Elia Johnson’s (Full Plate/Meals in a Snap) great Pinterest page!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
