Today's Challenge- Eat (Serve your kids) more apples.
In my post: My Favorite Foods- Apples, I mention that apples are typically my first offering if my kids want a snack. If they want something else, I'll typically suggest that they have some apple first.
Apples are full of fiber which helps to keep them full and helps to balance the blood sugar. Once they've had an apple, their cravings for other sugary or snacky foods diminishes.
Personally, I have experienced the power of apples in my own health. In my post, Discipline and Gestational Diabetes, I discuss some of the challenges I've had with gestational diabetes and the fact that the doctors want to put me on Glyburide which I have been fighting tooth and nail.
The doctors have told me that there is nothing I can DO to change my morning blood sugars (besides taking medicine). They've told me that it's just how my body works. Well, they were wrong...
Before bed, I now eat an apple with cinnamon and a handful of walnuts and my morning blood sugars are consistently in the acceptable range.
Additionally, if I find myself craving sugar or carbs, I force myself to eat an apple and it quells the craving.
I suggest that you try adding more apples to your children's daily routine- particularly as a "first line" of defense snack.
One way to get them excited about this would be to buy a variety of apples... go to the store and buy one of each and have a family "taste testing," party.
For some suggestions for various ways to serve apples, check out: "My Favorite Foods- Apples."
We did an apple tasting a few months ago, and I couldn't believe how much my little ones loved it. I didn't think they could love apples more than they already did, but apparently I was wrong. :)
ReplyDeleteApples were also really great for me during my last pregnancy. Keeping one by my bed was the one thing that finally stopped the morning sickness. I wish I had known six months earlier!
I tend to buy the same apples out of habit and then my son did a testing at his school and I couldn't believe how excited he was about a "new," kind of apples! That's great that apples helped with morning sickness... they do seem to be quite the miracle food :)
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