Tag: children

Children and fruit: 5 sweet summer recipes – Italian Cuisine

For breakfast or as a snack, but also as a quick and light lunch, perhaps to break up a day of games in the sun … sweets are always welcome for children. And we grown-ups can take advantage of it to offer children something healthy

Apricots, peaches, plums, plums, watermelon, melon … the variety of the fruit in summer it is truly extraordinary. And it must be used all over, to give children a full of goodness and vitamins. But how? Making delicious and gluttonous desserts that see the protagonist fruit. Fruit salads, smoothies and milkshakes, of course; ice cream cups garnished with diced fruit, too; and more…

Peach yoghurt mousse

Blend the natural white yogurt with icing sugar and with an equal weight of whipped Cream, obtaining a soft mousse. Cut the peaches into cubes, arrange them in the glasses and season with a few drops of lemon juice e sugar cane. The yogurt mousse is placed on top. Obviously you can change the type of fruit you choose, or make the flavor of the dessert more decisive using fruit yogurt.

Chocolate and apricot sandwiches

Slices of pan brioche stuffed with a layer of chocolate cream and with the sliced apricots. To make it even more delicious you can spread the slices of bread with a layer of favorite ice cream, previously softened at room temperature.

Ricotta, honey and fruit

In a cup you have the favorite fruit: excellent wild berries, but also a summer fruit salad. It is completed with a spoonful of fresh ricotta, worked in cream with Acacia's honey. To make the dessert more inviting, you can end with grated chocolate.

Watermelon slush

Dice the watermelon pulp, previously without seeds, and pass it in the freezer for a few hours. When it is iced, transfer it to the blender and blend to obtain the granita. Mix with a lot of granita dark chocolate chips: will be the new "seeds" of the fruit. Divide into glasses and serve.

Covered fruit popsicles

Proceed as for watermelon granita, peeling and freezing the chosen fruit: peaches, melon, watermelon, apricots … individually or all together. Blend the pulp and distribute it in plastic glasses disposable. In the middle, insert the stick e pass them in the freezer. When they are solid, remove the glass and dip each popsicle in dark chocolate, which you have previously melted in a bain-marie. Place in the freezer until ready to serve.

5 seconds for children – Italian Cuisine

Meat, fish or eggs does not matter: the second in the summer must be light and appetizing so that children can eat it willingly. Maybe combining it with some vegetables

"Children come back to the table which is the second one!" Who has never heard this call of the mother? To avoid tantrums and scoldings, the latter must really know how to enthrall puppies. Or he must be the only protagonist on the table: nothing first, but only a side dish (betting on potatoes is always a good idea) and a nice fruit salad. Obviously the usual rules apply: the meat must be tender, free of fat and "nerves", while perfectly clean fish and barbed. Always bearing in mind that the best "trick" is to support (at least in part) the child's preferences.

Stuffed courgettes

Prepare a filling by mixing 300 g of minced veal with 100 g of sausage, 100 g of mortadella from Bologna, an egg yolk, breadcrumbs and grated parmesan. Wash the courgettes and boil them for about ten minutes, then cut them in half and dig them like a boat. Add the pulp to the stuffing and fill the zucchini with the mixture. Bake in a hot oven at 180 ° C for about half an hour, season with a little oil. You can also prepare this way other vegetables.

Like a fish and chips

The anchovies they are good for children. And if they are golden and crunchy they are irresistible. They go open to book, gutted, boned and washed, then rolled in flour. At this point they are browned in a non-stick pan greased with a film of oil. And the fries? If we don't want to fry them, we can cut them anyway matchstick potatoes, boil them in water boiling, drain them, dry them well and finish cooking in a hot oven, after dressing them with a little oil: they will still be golden and crispy.

Jelly rolls

The loin slicesthin, they must be spread on the cutting board; on each one there is a slice of mortadella and a bit of Emmenthal, then roll up to stop the rolls. Cook in a pan with a knob of butter. Cooked and cold, the rolls should be transferred to a pan and covered with gelatin, to be prepared with a special nut, used according to the instructions. In the pan you can also add chopped vegetables, to give color to the dish.

Baked omelette with vegetables

Cook the chopped vegetables in a pan with a little oil: potatoes, onions, courgettes, aubergines… when cooked they add the diced ham. Beat the eggs in a bowl (one per person) with a little salt and add the filling. Pour the mixture into an oiled baking pan and cook at 180 ° C for about 40 minutes.

Sole turbans

Cut into quarters for the long 4 ripe perini tomatoes; fillet (or get caught by the fishmonger) 4 sole, making sure there are no bones in the pulp. Wrap a fillet around a tomato stick, then stop the turbans with a toothpick. Arrange them in an oven dish, season with oil, salt and basil leaves and cook at 180 ° C for about 15 minutes.

Children: the importance of food in the first 1000 days – Italian Cuisine

Adult health starts from conception – indeed, from before. And the food plays a key role. From good food standards when trying to have a child (did you know, for example, that? does eating fish help fertility?) to the rules for pregnancy, lactation and weaning. But above all, in general, we understand how and why the food of the first thousand days is so important. The initial imprint defines our relationship with food in the future and much more: it is a determining factor for physical, emotional and psycho-intellectual development individual. Interview with the Genoese doctor Stefano Gandus, mspecialist in pediatrics and homeopathy, expert in allergology and neonatology.

First of all, let's clarify: the 1000 days of life are intended from conception to the second year of age: 270 of the pregnancy + 356 of the first year +3 65 of the second year.

"Today's scientific literature has definitively confirmed the importance of the first days of life as a period of foundation formation for the health of the individual"- begins Gandus -"power pre-pregnancy, in pregnancy and the child up to two years is perhaps the most relevant factor among those that interact in modulating development. And it is the one on which a person has more leeway for its practical impact (while it is more difficult, for example, to manage the impact on our bodies of environmental molecules such as air pollutants, electromagnetic waves, or drugs and even emotions, as they produce even toxic neuromediators (positive impulses – serotonin – or exciting – adrenaline).

Quality and quantity, what are the basic principles?

Food principles are divided between macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, lipids) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals and their salts.) These principles do not provide us calories: we need to replace this old concept with that of energy (which is formed in the mitochondria). What quantity should I take? It is identified by guidelines, but we must increasingly alongside the concept of quality.

What are the fundamental factors for the quality of the child's nutrition?

They are two: acquire good eating habits (from the parent), which must grow in harmony with a positive relationship between the child and the food and the child e the adult who takes care of his diet. In fact, a serene psychic situation favors the digestive and assimilative processes If not, the absorption of the nourishers is disturbed. Forcing is never good, as well as the non-respect of taste. Forcing the child to eat more or less or different from what he wants is wrong: you have to offer food in the right quantities and leave a margin of choice to the child, which has a sort of internal regulatory mechanism. Growth tables they make sense to follow growth, but they must not be taken in a constrictive sense, like a roadmap to follow.

What are the tips to get to conception?

First of all, they relate to the lifestyle and nutrition of both parents and will also apply to the mother during pregnancy and breastfeeding. For the woman the amount of food should be slightly higher in quantity than what it has always eaten (moderately hyperenergetic), because it will have to form new body inside his. IS don't vary the diet, on the contrary: that it respects its tastes and habits, with prudence and common sense for the food at risk.

What are the foods at risk?

Since pre-conception, must be abolished i chemical sweeteners (toxic) and lo white sugar (sucrose). Eliminate as much as possible also i pre-cooked foods, preserved for a long time (like cans of tuna or meat rather than ready-made sauces) and refined (including salt and sugar, which should be consumed whole). During pregnancy and breastfeeding alcohol must then be reduced (half a glass of wine a day is already the maximum limit and it is better to be red) and in particular during pregnancy game, sausages and offal (hepato-renal overload); the crustaceans and molluscs (risk of gastroenteritis, allergies, hepatitis – a unless they are super-cooked) and to a great extent le Solanaceae (solanine, present in potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes, etc, it is a little toxic to the central nervous system).

Let's get to breastfeeding: what are the right rules?

The breast milk and the the perfect food for the newborn: try to keep it at least six months, for the following reasons: The macro and micro nutrients of breast milk are growth factors and invaluable immune stimuli; it is not a contaminated food; has the right temperature and generates a unique, unrepeatable relationship in life between mother and child.

And who can't give their own milk?

In the absence of breast milk, formulated milk represents a valid alternative. I'm products derived from a modification of cow's milk and are made with updated nutritional criteria and therefore they are balanced.

Advice for feeding the mother during breastfeeding?

They are the same as in pregnancy but less rigid, especially on crustaceans, molluscs, game. THEsupply must be varied, because it enriches the milk with tastes that the child learns to recognize and therefore it is educated to the taste of substances that it will find again at weaning. Scientific research today is showing us that foods promote the expression of genetic potential during the development of the first stages of life then the arrival to the cell of healthy micro and macro nutrients opens its chromosomes like a fan to express itself in the best way.

Here we enter the domain of epigenetics …

Yup: information brought by food, that promotes potential gene expression, it starts from conception and is maximum in the first months of embryonic life, but remains within the first 1000 days. Promote genetic expression it means that if your cells and genes are informed by healthy and diversified substances, they will succeed in turn to express a potential for growth up to to arrive at a development that is not only physical but also broader and more harmonious psycho-intellectual. This epigenetic concept is called "metabolic programming".

Let's talk about weaning: when and how is it good that it happens?

Between the fifth and sixth month the digestive and absorption systems are mature and there is the gradual introduction of food solid, which the baby will tolerate so much better, the more his intestinal mucosa has been prepared by breastfeeding. The window between 5 and 7 months it's the one where it's easier tolerating food and not creating allergies; delaying weaning more is not advisable. Need always respect the self-regulation of the child, because the one who does not eat today will eat it tomorrow. Waste which he will eventually show discovering new foods are not dangerous, they don't have to worry mothers and the dads: the important thing is a varied diet and a lot of patience.

Per regarding the vegetarian diet, if well conducted, eviscurrently with the guidance of medical experts or nutritionists, recent surveys say that it does not create problems for the correct development of the child.

And from weaning to the age of two, which is the end of the famous "1000 days"?

There are some rules that are best respected: never cow's milk before the year; fresh fruit and oilseeds after 9 months; no sugar and salt up to two years. But the main rule from weaning on it is this: what makes the text is the example of the parents, the child lives on on their model, so they are the parents in the first place who must take care of eating healthily.

Carola Traverso Saibante
June 2019

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