Meal Play Monday

Meal Play Monday will be a day dedicated to doing EXACTLY what we have been taught NOT to do, play with our food.  Meal Play Monday's will include fun recipes for children, as well as adults.  I will include fun recipes themed for the holidays, party favors, and healthy snacks for children.  

In a previous blog, Lynsee Yacks had asked if I had any tips to getting children to eat healthy foods.  I was stumped on the subject for a while.  I realized, while grocery shopping with my son, that children want to eat food shaped like fun characters.  My son wanted to buy fruit snacks shaped like Mickey Mouse, and macaroni and cheese shaped as Sponge Bob, even Cheez-It's with the letters of the alphabet on them.  If we want to get children to eat healthy food, we need to make it fun.  

I hope to accomplish a couple of things with this weekly themed blog.  Not only to get children to eat healthy foods and impress our party guests with our fun snacks, but also to tap into our creative sides.  

Creativity is essential in the growth of young minds and the seeds of creativity are within everyone.  Those that nurture their sprouting imaginations will go on to lead the future with powerful creative thinking abilities.  Those that "think outside the box" are the leaders that invent and problem solve in new ways. Society dismisses creativity as an important aspect of life and many never even get the chance to explore it.

Read more on the importance of creativity in this link.

This week's Meal Play Monday recipes will be in response to Lynsee Yacks request for tips to get children to eat healthy food, fruit in particular.  Arranging fruit into fun pictures makes food more desirable for children.  Eating becomes fun, more like edible art.  

image credit: Gabriela Fischer Fun Meals 4 Kids

The Bananapolice.com's Fun Meals 4 kids offers tons of fun edible arrangements to help encourage children to eat fruit.  

Personally, I have not had trouble getting my son to eat fruit.  My issue has always been getting him to eat a healthy breakfast, with all the sugary cereal advertisements.  If any of you have a similar issue, I have found a few helpful cites that integrate healthy breakfast food into an edible arrangement.

image credit: Victoria Wellman of Mail Online

Do you have any helpful suggestions to getting children to eat healthy food?  Fruit? or Breakfast?  I would also like to hear how you feel about the importance of creativity.  Do you agree that it is an important quality to explore?