Kids are so busy, either with organized activities or just plain racing around playing. Either way, they’re burning up energy. And since they have relatively small stomachs, they need to replenish their energy supplies frequently during the day.
Usually, they’ll plow through three modest meals and then on top, need three to four snacks. And for snacks, the easy way out is to dish out biscuits and cakes or the like, but it’s just as easy to hand them a banana or whip up a banana sandwich or banana smoothie.
Simple to make snacks like banana and peanut butter sandwiches, banana jelly, and banana and ice cream are always going to be a hit with kids because they’re flavours kids love. And you’ll love how easy they are to prepare.
Stack up the fruit bowl with bananas within easy reach of the kids. Add bananas to their school lunch boxes, get them in the habit of enjoying bananas instead of salty snack foods. Bananas are so easy to peel, easy to chew and taste so good!
Mashed up banana is an excellent first food for a young child from around 6 to 7 months old. This is when they have good neck and head control as well as having the tongue and mouth movements necessary to swallow foods properly.
Bananas keep kids healthy by providing them with essential vitamins and minerals. They’re a great source of vitamin C, folate, riboflavin and are the best source of vitamin B6 (a small banana provides over half the daily B6 needs of a young child). And then there’s potassium, a mineral that bananas are most famous for, and one that helps keep blood pressure normal.
Bananas help regulate the bowels and it is a total myth that they constipate kids. Bananas, in fact are regular good guys because they contain fibre to keep a child’s intestines healthy. The average banana provides around 3g of fibre, which is 15% of the fibre recommended for good bowel health in children. Myth busted.
As already mentioned, on any day, kids really rip through their energy stores, so bananas are perfect to top them up with. They’re like sportspeople that you see on TV such as bike riders on the road, eating bananas during their sport. The energy hit comes from the carbohydrate in bananas, which is digested and converted to muscle fuel in the form of sugar known as glucose.
So it is with kids. For a glucose top up, bananas are spot on!
If the kids are hungry and there are bananas around, they’ll eat them. So here’s a couple of tips about keeping stocked up.
Yellow bananas will keep for a couple of days. So don’t just buy yellow, buy some green as well. These will ripen to yellow over the next 3 to 4 days and will keep the demand satisfied.
Alternatively, yellow bananas (not green) placed in the vegie crisper drawer of the fridge will keep firm and tasty. The skin may go brown but the flesh inside is still the same delicious banana.
To speed up the ripening process, keep bananas in a bowl with other ripe fruit, or stash the bananas in a paper bag with ripe apples or avocados. In both cases, the natural ethylene gas produced by the bananas and other ripe fruit hurries the ripening process along.
Keep up your banana stocks and keep the kids on the go.
