Healthy eating for kids - What should I eat?
To eat healthy every day, choose foods from each food group.
Bread, cereals, rice, pasta, noodles
- You need these to get fibre, vitamins and minerals, carbohydrates and protein. They help you to have enough energy and to grow.
- You should choose wholegrain bread, high fibre cereal, brown rice and wholemeal pasta.
- You could try:
- brown, wholegrain, mixed grain or rye bread and rolls
- pita breads
- flat breads.
Vegetables, Legumes
- You need these for vitamins, minerals, fibre and carbohydrates.
- Try to eat different types of vegetables.
- Don’t forget to go for 2 & 5 – try to eat 5 serves of vegetables a day.
- What are legumes? Legumes grow on vines or bushes and can be seeds (eg. lentils), can be dried (eg. dried peas) or can be eaten raw (green beans, alfalfa, soybean sprouts).
- You could try:
- sweet potato
- taro
- bok choy
- corn
- celery.
Fruit
- You need fruit for vitamins (including vitamin C), folate and some carbohydrates.
- Fruit juice is good, but real fruit is even better. Dried fruit is good too but can be bad for your teeth (because of the sugar) so only have dried fruit once a day.
- Canned fruit is ok if it is in natural juice and has no added sugar.
- You could try:
- strawberries
- blueberries
- kiwi fruit
- rockmelon
- starfruit.
Milk, yoghurt, cheese
- You need these for calcium, protein, riboflavin and vitamin B12.
- Choose milk, cheese and yoghurt that is low in fat and not flavoured or sweetened. (Low and reduced fat varieties are not suitable for infants and young children.)
- If you can not eat milk, yoghurt or cheese, try other foods such as sardines, tuna, salmon, soy milk, lentils, almonds, brazil nuts and dried apricots to help you get some calcium.
- You could try:
- plain milk
- yoghurt with muesli on top
- banana smoothie
- feta cheese.
Meat, fish, poultry, eggs, nuts, legumes
- You need these for iron and zinc. Iron helps your body carry oxygen in the blood and zinc helps you to grow.
- Eat red meat 3-4 times a week.
- Choose meats with hardly any fat on them and stir fry and grill instead of frying.
- Eat processed meats such as ham, sausages and salami only sometimes because they have lots of salt.
- If you don’t eat meat, choose legumes, nuts, seeds and wholegrain bread. See Healthy eating for vegetarians.
- You could try:
- kangaroo
- turkey
- duck
- fish
- prawns.
