I work with kids a lot and have started having fun with a terrific exercise I found in the February 2009 edition of Family Fun magazine entitled “Beat the Sugar Blues”. 

A brilliant young man, 13 years old, did a demonstration of common foods and their corresponding sugar contents by utilizing sugar cubes (2 grams of sugar per cube).  There are no daily reference values for sugar, but a good rule of thumb is 48 grams per day MAX.  That’s 12 teaspoons/12 sugar packets/6 sugar cubes. 

According to the article, a 20oz bottle of soda contains 17 teaspoons of sugar = 17 sugar packets = 34 sugar cubes = 68 GRAMS OF SUGAR!   The pioneer of this Family Fun article built a WALL of sugar cubes to illustrate his point.  A Hi-C Juice Box has 6 teaspoons of sugar/6 sugar packets/> 12 sugar cubes.  That’s ONE item in a kid’s lunch box! 

Get out your calculator and try this out at home.

Add whatever veggies you like to soups, pasta sauce, meatloaf, meatballs, even pizza sauce.  Get creative, and once the kiddos realize how they can get those veggies in their bellies and not even taste them, they might even help with the pureeing.

A key note here.  This approach is not meant to “train” little ones to eat their vegetables only under conditions where they can’t detect them.  This is simply a fun and easy way to introduce the notion that veggies are a wonderful part of the eating experience and can be incorporated into the foods we love in imaginative ways.  It’s a spring board for those kiddos in our lives who are less than enthused about the world of carrots, zucchini, sweet potatoes, broccoli, spinach, etc.

3/4 cup flax meal (1/2 cup flaxseeds before being ground up in my coffee bean grinder)

2 mashed ripe bananas

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup canola oil

2 large eggs

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

You can also add dried fruits or chocolate chips if you like (about 1/2 cup)

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Beat banana, sugar, oil and eggs at meduim speed of a mixer until well-blended.

3. Combine dry ingredients and gradually add to wet mixture, beating until well-incorporated.

4. Stir in mix-ins’ if desired.

5. Pour batter into loaf pan coated with cooking spray and bake at 350 for 55 minutes or until inserted toothpick or knife comes out clean.

6. Cool 10 minutes in pan on wire rack.  Remove, cool some more and EAT.

We love it plain or with a little butter. 

Enjoy!