Proteins are important building blocks for a growing child. They are required for growth, maintenance and repair of body tissues. Different kinds of specialized proteins also perform many important functions like carrying oxygen in our cells and fighting infections. In a recent Ask the Expert column, dietitian Emma Stirling wrote about protein power and offered tips on getting enough protein in your child’s diet. Children 1-3 years old need about 0.5 g of protein per pound of body weight, which comes to about 13-16 g of daily protein. In most cases, it is not a problem to get this much from a typical American diet. But if you have a picky eater, or if you are following a strict vegetarian diet, you need to pay a little extra attention to your child’s protein needs.

In this week’s Five for Fridays, I want to highlight 5 vegetarian sources of proteins. We routinely include them in our meals using many of our simple recipes. Even if you are not a strict vegetarian, you can try them occasionally to bring variety to your diet.

Lentils

Source: Wikimedia

Lentils are dry seeds of a pulse crop. They are rich in protein, iron, dietary fiber and B vitamins. More importantly, they are rich in the essential amino acids (there are 9 essential amino acids our body cannot produce). Sprouted lentils provide all of the 9 amino acids. On a 100 g dry weight basis, lentils provide 26 g of protein! Just like whole grains, soaking lentils  in water removes phytates which allows better mineral absorption in the GI tract.

One of our favorite recipes is a lentil soup which we often eat with basmati rice.

Chick Peas

Source: Wikimedia

Chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans, have been around for a long time! You will find them in almost any cuisine around the world, especially in the Middle East, Mediterranean and South East Asia. They are super rich in protein, vitamins and minerals like calcium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium and zinc.

Here is one of our recipes with beef and chickpeas. There are many different ways to cook chickpeas without any meat.

Red Kidney Beans

Wikimedia Commons

There are many different types of beans, but our favorite are red kidney beans. They provide a lot of protein, iron, calcium, B vitamins, magnesium and zinc. Soaking them in water overnight reduces cooking time and removes complex sugars that would otherwise cause indigestion and gas.

Red kidney beans with olive oil is one of our favorite recipes.

Nuts

Source: Wikimedia

Unlike vegetables, nuts are actually dried fruit. If your child does not have any allergies to nuts, they can offer a good balance of calories from fat, carbs and proteins. Our favorites are almonds, walnuts, pecans and hazelnut. We like to soak almonds overnight in water then peel the skin off before eating the soft white core. We use walnuts in salads and pecans in some of our recipes like the steak and vegetables with pecans casserole. Nuts also provide healthy fats such as monounsaturated fats and omega 3 fatty acids.

Quinoa

We discovered quinoa not too long ago, and since then it has taken up a regular place in our kitchen cabinets. Quinoa is really the unrecognized superfood because it is not so common in America. It is beginning to be more available now in some stores, so check it out! It is low in glycemic index, and although it is not a grain, it can be a nice replacement to rice with your entree. It is a good source of protein, vitamins and minerals.

One of our favorite recipe is chicken with quinoa. And for the strictly vegetarian, here is our quinoa with vegetables.

Enjoy these recipes and let me know what is on your mind!

©2010 Littlestomaks.com

We found this lentil soup in our local Whole Foods store a couple of weeks ago. We liked it so much that I decided to write a quick review here. I definitely recommend it for you to try.

Here is what we like about this product -

1. It is organic and the 19 oz. can with 2 servings makes a full meal if you serve it with Basmati rice.
2. Great nutrition since lentil is a good source of protein and iron.
3. Contains a blend of carrots, celery and spinach which provide fiber, vitamin C, additional iron and calcium.
4. No cholesterol and trans fat.

Here is what we don’t like about this product -

1. Main problem – too much salt! One serving contains 950 mg of sodium which comes to 39% of the daily value.
2. It contains added sugar, although the amount is low – only 2 g per serving. We don’t add sugar to our recipe of lentil soup, so I don’t understand why sugar needs to be added here.

Overall, a big thumbs up. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Disclaimer – I have not received any sponsorship or free samples of product from Muir Glen for writing this review. For complete nutritional information and other products, visit Muir Glen website.

©2009 Littlestomaks.com

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This recipe was sent to me by Rebecca Subbiah. She is a registered dietitian, freelance writer and a personal trainer. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccasubbiah and check out her very cute Chow and Chatter blog. She also runs Dietitian for Hire, a consulting company located in Winston Salem North Carolina offering Freelance Writing, Nutritional Counseling, Speaking Engagements and more.

Rich in Protein with the lentils, beta carotene, folate, vitamin C and potassium. Great for little stomachs!

Ingredients

1. Carrots – 8-10; I had lots in my Farm box, so thought this would be great!
2. one cup small red lentils
3. 1/2 red onion
4. 1.2 l low sodium vegetable stock
5. 2 tsp ground coriander
6. 1 tsp ground cumin
7. Fresh coriander/cilantro
8. Salt and pepper

Method

Heat oil and add onions and carrots, then add spices. Add broth and lentils and simmer for 30-45 min until very soft. Use a hand blender to make into a puree then add fresh chopped fresh cilantro.

©2009 Littlestomaks.com

This is a second post under the Carnival of Play being hosted by phdinparenting. Here are a few very simple ideas for you to try at mealtime with your little one. Feel free to share your favorite tips for trying new foods.

Indulge their imagination

Kids have a vivid imagination! Slices of grapes or kiwi can become the eyes of a cheese monster, an almond its nose and a moon-shaped piece of strawberry its smiley face. In her guest post Help Your Child with Autism Have Fun with Food on this blog, Melissa offered another fun idea of letting your child discover her inner Van Gogh by messing around with carrot, broccoli and finger paint! Food is not just for eating, as we adults tend to focus on in our hurried lifestyle. It can also allow a child to develop a connection with many other interesting things as he makes sense of the world around him. The good thing is that fruits and vegetables come in many different shapes, sizes and colors, so the possibilities of creating interesting patterns are almost limitless. Come to think of it – Edible Arrangements has done exactly that and created a very successful business. Hmmm, I wonder if they have anything for kids!

Getting messy is not so bad

I love to watch my daughter play with strands of cooked spaghetti and get the buttery sauce all over hands! It is her favorite and she can’t wait to play (and of course eat) whenever it is on our dinner menu. My son, on the other hand, enjoys eating fruit yogurt and pudding straight out of the containers with his fingers! It is no longer a problem for me to watch him make a big mess of his hands and clothes.

It is natural for kids to explore foods with their hands. This is how they get a feel for its texture, shape and eventually taste. Sure it is a nightmare to clean up after them, but it does get better as they acquire more skills with their hands and fingers. We have been using these oversized vinyl spill mats from One Step Ahead under their high chairs. They don’t get too sticky with spilled food and are very easy to clean. Also, getting them to wash their hands before eating is one habit you would want to develop very early on.

It’s ok to add Fruit Loops to the soup

Combination of different food items may seem “weird” to adults, but for a curious child it is all fair game. One of our recent favorite is adding fruit loops to lentil soup, which my daughter seem to enjoy a lot as she uses her spoon to fish them out one-by-one from her soup. Here are a few more:

Edamame beans and plain yogurt

Plain yogurt on macaroni ‘n cheese

Honey on macaroni ‘n cheese

Dip crackers in orange juice

Dip pieces of fried Tilapia in pudding

Drinking “shots” of orange juice from small yogurt containers

Although I am glad our twins do not try to eat the soup with their fingers, it is still weird to watch them sip from a straw!

Pretending to be a grown-up

Sometimes we like to enjoy a glass of wine with our meal. On one of those occasions my daughter insisted to try a glass herself! It surely took us a while to figure out how to satisfy her request, but then my wife came up with a brilliant idea to offer her a glass of no-sugar added cranberry juice. It looked just like our red wine and she enjoyed it sipping from her straw! Kids love to imitate the grown ups; use it to build healthy eating habits and mealtime behaviors. Too much fruit juice, even though no-sugar added, is not good of course! But it sure is a lot of fun watching them try all sorts of grown up acts in a childlike way!

Encourage them to invent games with food

It helps if kids can build a story around the food they are eating. Sometimes, they can come up with interesting stuff on their own. It was quite entertaining to recently watch them try to stir in milk inside their fruit yogurt container, mixing it over and over again with a spoon and singing “Bate Bate Chocolate!” Seems like they picked it up from a Dora episode and decided to make their own chocolate with milk and yogurt! We of course, joined the fun and encouraged them to continue playing as they finished it in no time!

Flexibility + patience + perseverance + fun = healthy eating habits

Just like the  secret ingredient of a great recipe, fun and play at mealtime works very well with kids as you encourage them to try a variety of new foods. We live very busy lives these days, and it is very tempting to try to get over with dinner quickly so you can wash them and tuck them into bed soon after. When we are constantly thinking of the next step, we end up getting frustrated as we try to force them to finish their food and move on. Unfortunately, kids don’t follow the clock like we do; they want to live in the moment and enjoy it at their own pace. As parents of these active toddlers, we have to be very patient, stay flexible and keep on trying new ideas to make them comfortable with these new foods. By living in the moment with them and having fun yourself, you can take the stress out from mealtime.

What are you favorite tips for fun at mealtime?

©2009 Littlestomaks.com

Happy Friday! Check out these interesting nutrition related articles and drop a comment if you would like to share an opinion.

Carrots are boring but what about X-ray vision carrots?

It appears that giving veggies interesting and creative names might work if you would like your kids to try them more. In a recent study, 4-year old preschoolers ate twice as many carrots when they were presented as “x-ray vision carrots” compared to just “carrots”. That is amazing! I guess it might work with fruits too although they were not included in this study. Creating an experience of fun with veggies worked for @MommyMellie, who wrote in her guest post on this blog about how carrots, broccoli  and finger paint got her child to tolerate veggies and even like them. So, let your imagination go wild and have fun with fruits and veggies. Here are some more tips on helping your kids eat more of them.

“Organic” stamp does not mean food safety

Remember the recent outbreak of salmonella from the peanut plants in Texas and Georgia? Turns out, they also had the “organic” certification from the USDA according to this article in the New York Times! This is a good time to remind ourselves that organic certification does not imply food safety, even though you may expect it because you pay top dollar for these foods. Just like every other government program, the process of getting and maintaining the organic certification has become a beuareucratic mess. It took the private certifier for the Peanut Corporation of America nearly 7 months to report the problem to the USDA. By then, several people had been infected and many foods were on the recall list. In my opinion, these inspectors should also lose their license!

Does it mean you should give up on buying organic? Certainly not. However, it is probably a good idea to understand what the label means and not make any assumptions.

Getting a blood test for food allergy? Watch out for misdiagnosis

Seems like a lot of people are getting a blood test for detecting food allergies in their children. And in a lot of cases, kids and adults alike are getting diagnosed with allergies they don’t really have. In one case according to this article, a young boy was put on feeding tube because blood tests indicated he was allergic to everything! After doing a food challenge, doctors were able to introduce 20 foods into his diet. This is an extreme example for sure, however there is an increase in the number of misdiagnosed food allergies when blood tests are used. A 2003 report in Pediatrics reported that positive result on a blood allergy test correlated with less than 50% of real food allergy. If the blood tests show a huge positive allergy response, it is best to contact a specialist. Introduce new foods slowly and watch of any allergic reactions.

Do you have any experiences with food allergies in your kids?

Open your eyes to healthy eating habits

March is “Save Your Vision” month sponsored by the American Optometric Association (AOA). Most people already know that carrots are good for eyes because they supply the beta-carotene needed for night vision. There are several other key nutrient for long term eye health which are not that commonly known. Accordinng to AOA’s  Diet and Nutrtion website, researchers have now linked nutrients such as lutein, zeaxanthin, vitamin C, vitamin E, essential fatty acids and zinc to reducing several eye diseases. Foods such as spinach, kale, citrus fruits, nuts, whole grains, fish and supplements can provide all of these nutrients. This is a good reminder to try various foods with your toddler so he can get a balanced diet. Most toddlers are picky eaters, so you can also consider a daily multivitamin supplement.

Enjoy lentil soup

Our twins have now developed a taste for lentil soup. Check out our simple lentil soup recipe! Hope your toddlers find it as appealing as ours.

Enjoy your weekend!

Image source: orangeacid on Flickr
©2009 Littlestomaks.com