Vitamins - the art of getting kids to take them

Kids need Supplements

Children who eat from all the food groups (most of the time) typically don’t Vitamin supplementation.
With our fast food and rushed lives, this isn’t always achievable.

We all need to review our children’s diet for nutrition deficiency. Deficiency is a cause of disease.
Low fruits and veggies often mean low potassium, fiber and vitamins C and A. Poor intake of calcium-rich foods, both dairy and nondairy items, means calcium may be inadequate. And if you miss fish and other DHA-rich foods they are short on DHA. 
A natural raw food diet is best. However, our kids are probably deficient, so, good supplementation is a must.

For many reasons, today many kids are exhibiting very challenging health, behavioral and developmental issues. These can actually be helped with good nutritional support. We need to provide kids with the nourishment and tools their growing systems desperately need to develop their bodies. With the nutrient-lacking fast foods, we have to supplement. 

When they resist, we need to use some clever tactics, otherwise it becomes a battle of wills. 
 

Some parents choose supplements in a capsule form, in order to open and empty the contents into a food or juice format. If in tablet form you can use a small blender, Coffee grinder, or even mortar-pestle. Once you have the vitamin powder ready to use, it’s time to get creative.

Smoosh

Smoosh : Use a thick juice (strawberry banana, red grape, tropical or orange work well), fruit smoothie, fruit puree/baby food or yoghurt that your child loves. This forms the base from which to give the supplements. Mix the puree and supplement together and they will eat it in a spoon, with no complaint.

Mary Poppins

A spoonful of sugar really does help the medicine go down. Mary Poppins said it. If you are in a rush try a teaspoon of organic peanut butter, maple syrup, or honey and the supplement.

Distraction

Distraction : sometimes it's easier to give it to them as they are watching their cartoon or kids show.
It's easy to distract them with a toy too.

Natural “ice-cream”

Natural fruit (Banana) ice-cream: Blend frozen bananas together with the supplement to make a yummy banana ice cream. Place these in ice cube trays, really works. 

Blending 

Juicing or Blending is a great way to provide nutrition to your kids, and the vitamins can hide inside the great-tasting juice. Sweet and simple juices like apple or orange, or strawberry and pineapple. Blender- made smoothiescan hide supplements more than juicing. A quick way is to put frozen organic fruit, flax seed oil, the powdered vitamin from emptied capsules and, filtered water, or coconut milk or other natural juice.

Liquid Vitamins

When all else seems to fail, you might look into high-quality liquid vitamins. Liquid vitamin preparations are fine, but keep particularly well after opening, and lose potency quickly even in the refrigerator. Thus, consume them quickly.

Chewables

Many vitamins and supplements can be found in a chewable form, which is actually one of the simplest ways to get vitamins into children.If your kids are old enough to handle chewable tablets they will usually take to them easily.  Watch for artificial colors, artificial flavors and especially artificial sweeteners.  These potentially harmful chemicals are cheap for the manufacturer but no good for your child - read labels always. Also, be aware, chewable tablets tend to be more expensive than regular tablets containing the same amounts of nutrients. Most of the chewable vitamins contain a source of sugar but per serving it is usually isn’t much (2g or less per serving). Note that.

Milligrams

Vitamin supplements are much safer than medicines, you do not need to be exact in figuring how much to give.

Dr. Andrew Saul, author and a proponent of taking control of our own family’s health says :
" We figured an adult dose for an adult weight.  If an adult was 180 pounds and one tablet, then a 90 pound adolescent was half a tablet and a 45 pound child was one quarter tablet. One eighth tablet for a 23 pound toddler and one sixteenth tablet for a baby of 12 pounds. You can safely round up and give more than this. Pound for pound, a youngster's need for vitamins is proportionally greater than that of an adult.”

We need to do whatever it takes to keep our kids healthy.
Supplements do no good in the bottle.

 Michael@