Why pizza is the perfect way to get your children to try new foods
More and more focus has been put onto healthy eating in the UK as obesity rates and unbalanced diets have become sadly more a part of our food culture in recent decades.
Food habits start from childhood and children who are not encouraged to try new foods and develop a healthy relationship with food are far more likely to become obese, less likely to partake in sports and also likely to suffer problems with concentration at school, leading to underperformance. Learning about food and its effect on both the body and the brain is something everybody should take seriously.
The reality is that some of the foods we like to eat are not always the best for our bodies and minds. This certainly doesn’t mean we should never eat these foods, just that we should be aware of the need to eat an overall balanced diet and to consume certain foods in moderation.
So where does pizza sit within this discussion?
Clearly takeaway pizzas are generally always going to be an unhealthy choice with their combination of high saturated fat, low nutrition density and often unhealthy toppings.
At Homemade Pizza Club, we are on a mission to balance the joys of eating pizza with more awareness of how to make it healthier and to use it as a way to increase children’s knowledge and awareness of different flavours. Kids (and adults) love pizza, so why not use it as an opportunity to help them develop their food habits and get them trying new things?
It is amazing how much more palatable certain foods can be to a child when put on a pizza. I have personally had my children tuck into artichokes, olives, capers and many other high antioxidant, high vitamin/mineral toppings on a pizza. Had I tried to serve them in any other way, they would probably have gone on some form of hunger strike! But get them involved in making their pizza and giving them a variety of toppings to create their own pizzas and suddenly their minds open. Foods they would never touch with a barge pole suddenly becoming foods they are interested to learn more about.
So why not use your family pizza night not just as a way to have a lot of fun together and get your children helping to prepare their own meal, but to start to introduce them to exciting new flavours, tastes and food experiences whilst enjoying a food that they love to eat!
