5 Superfoods Your Kid Will Love

Superfoods are antioxidant and vitamin rich foods that protect cells from free radical damage which includes diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and chronic inflammation. Kids can benefit from consumption of superfoods just as much as adults, but some just may not taste that great to their simple palates — or may appear too “weird” for their discerning visual tastes. These five superfoods are great starters that will help you to avoid the potential kid conflicts, and if you present them to your kids in a fun way, they will love them.

1. Acai

Tell your daughter it’s princess fairy food, tell your son it’s Iron Man and the Hulk’s favorite morning cereal if you put blueberries in it, but this berry antioxidant granola is sure to please! Just don’t tell them how healthy acai is, or that it’s an amazing superfood. The acai berry is “dense with not only antioxidants but also amino acids and essential fatty acids.” Plus, compared to red wine (not for your kids, of course, but just to compare), acai contains 30 times more anthocyanins or flavonoids, and it has 10 times as many antioxidants as red grapes.

2. Cabbage

Braised sweet beets and cabbage are not commonly noted as the favorite foods of kiddies, but if you have fun with them, the next thing you know they’ll be running around saying, “I love cabbage!” You can tell them that pink fairy armadillos love braised cabbage and beets and visit little kids in their dreams that eat it too. Cabbage is an underrated superfood that has a mild flavor and crunch that “kids tend to like better than the usual salad greens.” Put this awesome toxin cleaner and cancer fighter in your kiddies’ soup, noodles, salads, or smoothies, and they’ll be flying around like that armadillo.

3. Apples

The wonderful heart shaped fruit that can be found in nearly every grocery store is a superfood! Kids will love the crisp, tart, sweet flavor of apples, as they come in many varieties. This fruit is full of antioxidants, flavonoids, vitamin C, fiber (30 percent of your daily value), and potassium; just make sure your kids eat the skin which has two to six times more antioxidants than the actual flesh. Feed your kids this homemade classic, homemade applesauce, because it’s smooth, simple, and deliciously healthy.

4. Sweet Potatoes

Tigger is orange; sweet potatoes are orange. Tigger is fun, and kids are fun. So, why not give kids Tigger colored sweet potatoes? They are superfoods that are full of beta-carotene which may boost cognitive function. In fact, several African studies have illustrated that the starch contains “between 100-1,600 micrograms (RAE) of vitamin A in every 3.5 ounces—enough, on average, to meet 35% of all vitamin A needs, and in many cases enough to meet over 90% of vitamin A needs.” This recipe may not be the healthiest, but it uses this marvelous, orange vegetable, and your kids will appreciate that it has chocolate in it.

5. Cinnamon

This apple cinnamon toast is fun and packs two superfoods into one! Make these crispy, gluten-free toasts for your kid, and they’ll love the crunch. Cinnamon is the star of these toasts, but it’s also a star spice and superfood. Cinnamon has been found to help regulate blood sugar. A study of sixty patients with type II diabetes, found that after “only forty days of taking about one half teaspoon of cinnamon daily, fasting serum glucose levels were lowered by 18 to 29 percent, triglycerides by 23 to 30 percent, low-density lipoproteins (LDL) by 7 to 27 percent, and total cholesterol by 12 to 26 percent.” In addition to these insulin enhancing properties, cinnamon is also recognized as an antibacterial agent because the essential oils in cinnamon stop the growth of Candida yeast as well as common bacteria and fungi. So, when your kids get dirty, wash them good and feed them some delicious cinnamon in roll form or toast form or straight up.

It’s never too late to start including superfoods into your kids’ or your own diet. The next time you’re at the grocery store, look for these five superfoods, and don’t neglect them. Soon enough, your kids will be saying: “more superfoods, please!”

Image source: DuncanCV/Wikimedia Commons