How to make food fun! Top tips from foodie blogger - All About Kids
Jen started her blog All About Kids in 2015 to share fun ways to learn about healthy food with her children Jessica and Oliver. In this blog post she gives us her top tips on how to make food fun. We love her foodie creations – great inspiration for anyone looking to get creative at mealtimes using simple techniques, no art degree required, thank goodness!
I’m sure if you ask any parent they will tell you that they have experienced the fussy eating phase at some point. Overcoming fussy eating is not something that will happen overnight, making food interesting and fun for children is one of the ways that can help overcome mealtime battles. It’s a well known fact that children eat with their eyes, meals that are visually stimulating will have a higher chance of being eaten. Incorporating some simple changes can make all the difference in making food more appealing to even the fussiest of eaters.
The easiest way to make food instantly more fun is to use a cookie cutter. There is pretty much a cookie cutter for everything these days but you only need a couple to make a difference. Our favourites are hearts and stars as shown here on the TUM TUM Eco Dippy Face Plate. This lovely plate is great for sectioning off some foods for children who like things kept separately. By simply cutting shapes into food whether it be a sandwich, toast, pancakes, fruit or vegetables you create a visually more appealing plate of tasty food. Easy!
One of the ways I like to make meals more interesting is to change the way I serve it. Serving lunch on a fun plate such as the Tum Tum Eco Cloud Dining Set is a really quick but effective way to mix things up. This eco-friendly set is made from bamboo fibre and is very cleverly designed with steeper sides for easy scooping. It’s easy to section off foods with the side dish and within the plate divider and you can have lots of fun moving the various elements around to create different weather themes. It comes with a cup which is easy for little ones to grasp too.
You could also have an indoor picnic on a wet day or a teddy bears picnic in the summer, simply pack up your lunchboxes and grab your teddies. Sometimes just a change in the way you offer food is enough to tempt fussy eaters.
Food art is by far the best way to make any meal fun, but don’t worry you don’t need to be on the same level as Picasso! The best thing about food art is that the options are limitless and you don’t even need any tools other than a knife. Start with something easy like a bear. All you need to make a bear is a pancake or crumpet, some sliced banana and some raisins.
- Place two pieces of banana at the top either side for ears.
- Add one piece of banana at the bottom in the middle as part of the nose.
- Then add two raisins for the eyes and one raisin on the banana nose.
- You can even add paws with two banana circles and raisins.
If you are feeling more adventurous why not try making some animal shapes out of fruit?
For more healthy and fun ideas please check out All About Kids.