To choose food for children, more or less the same criteria apply that should also be used for adults: quality, freshness and variety. In the case of children, however, it is even more important to be careful and not to neglect any aspect. for the little ones, food is once again a question of health. The pedialyte alternatives are the essential options there.
Choosing Food for Children: Packaged Products
Not all industrially produced baby foods are created equal. It seems trivial to underline it, but to choose food for children the first thing to do is to stop and read the label. Often the choices in purchases are guided by other factors: advertising, brand, price, special offers, but the most important element to select well is the label. The order of the ingredients, in accordance with the provisions of European legislation, is written on the basis of the quantity contained in the product. In practice, the first ingredient listed is the main one, while the last is the one contained in less quantity. The shorter the list of ingredients, the better it is. For example, here is the list of ingredients of a homogenized chicken of a famous brand:
- Cooking water
- Chicken meat 40%
- Cornstarch
- Sunflower oil
- Salt
It means that the main ingredient is the cooking water, followed by the chicken and then all the rest. From the label we will discover, for example, that in this baby food the quantity of chicken is equal to 40% and we will discover that it contains salt, an ingredient that should not be introduced early in the diet of children. And here, again by way of example, is the list of ingredients of a fruit homogenized product from another well-known brand of food for small children:
- 90% pear
- Sugar
- Cornstarch
- Lemon juice
Here the main component is certainly the pear, but there are also sugar and other ingredients. Once you get used to reading the label, it is natural to reflect more critically on your purchases and choose more consciously.
Choosing Baby Food: Fresh Products
It goes without saying that fresh products cannot be missing on the children’s table. It is very important to respect the seasonality of food. Seasonal fruits and vegetables have several advantages from a nutritional point of view as they are richer in vitamins and help to make the diet varied and that is to respect one of the fundamental principles of healthy diets.
