In the world of fast food and junk food, modern-day mommies try to maintain their child’s health by introducing them to natural foods with significant health characteristics. Nuts are just another snack that is packed with nutrients. Whether blended with food or just on their own, they are indeed a splendid food item to munch on. Well, much better than your regular fast and junk food items.
Nuts for Kids
Children of all ages need proper nutrition and a healthy diet to grow up as healthy and functioning adults. These nutritious nuts, packed with flavors and healthy carbs will get your kid hooked on healthy fats and flavors from a very young age. And when your taste buds are naturally aligned towards natural food sources, you don’t feel the urge to satisfy your cravings with calorie-dense meals.
Introducing the Best Nut
Since there are so many nuts available to us within a few miles (talking about the grocery store), you are bound to get confused one way or the other. Instead of opting for something really hard and with a more prominent flavor profile, go for something that your child might enjoy. Something likes the scrumptious cashew.
Cashew nuts are an amazing treat for people of all ages. Rich in texture with a mild flavor and crunchy, creamy exterior – they are indeed a treat. Cashews aren’t even nuts. They are seeds extracted from the fruit of the cashew apple.
Now, many people think that cashews are rich in fats and they might be really bad for health but, this is really far from the truth. Cashews are a combination of protein and healthy fat that can actually promote heart health and many other benefits.
Benefits of Cashews on Children Health
By introducing cashews to children, you are helping them achieve the following health benefits:
- Cashews will allow your child to develop healthier physically and mentally.
- Cashews consist of vitamins and minerals that cover a major part of the daily nutritional requirements of a child.
- Cashews have healthy fats that will help them grow with a normal BMI.
- Cashews relieve the chances of developing hypertension, asthma, diabetes, and other diseases.
- Digestion is a common issue among children and cashews help relieve digestive distress among children and regulate their bowel movement.
Introducing Cashews to Children
Every kid has his own pace of development and eating. But, one thing that is common between all babies is the timeline to which you can introduce other foods to them apart from breast milk or formula.
- For infants on formula milk or mother feed, it might not be a good idea to introduce them to raw cashews because there is a major possibility that your little baby might choke on them.
- After 6 to 8 months when your child finally starts taking food items like yogurt and butter, you can introduce them to cashews.
Timeline for Introducing Cashews to Children
Here is how you can start adding cashews to your child’s diet.
6 to 12 Months
- Your child is probably eating liquid foods like cereals, yogurt, and mashed fruits. You can sprinkle cashews after finely grinding them in a food processor. A pestle and mortar can also be used.
- Mothers can also mix cashew powder with breast milk.
- Children of this age can eat cream. So introducing cashew cream can also be quite a great thing. Soak cashews for a few hours until they are moist and soft. Blend them in a food processor with a small quantity of water until they are smooth.
- Babies of this age are learning to hold their spoons so you can put a thin mixture of flavored cashews on a spoon and guide them to put it in their mouth.
12 to 24 Months
- At this stage, your child will have teeth to chew food. You can add cashews in cereals, cashew powder into milk, and even make a fruit parfait with cashews sprinkled on top.
- This is a great time to introduce your kids to spreads and bread. Instead of giving them processed sugary spreads, give them cashew butter with any jam they like. Soak cashews for a few hours; process them until they are smooth. Add natural oil for flavor like coconut oil. Spread a thin layer on a single piece of bread and gradually increase the quantity.
Cashew Nut Powder
By adding more flavors to your cashew powder, you can make them more flavorful and healthy. Since you will be mixing this powder with milk into a very light solution for younger kids, it is important that the raw cashews you are grinding blend really well with the milk.
We will discuss how to make a delicious powder, packed with cashew benefits that can dissolve in your milk with no lumps!
Recipe
Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
To make this delicious powder, you will need the following ingredients:
- Cashews 1/2 cup
- Almonds 1 cup
- Pistachios 1/2 cup
- Cardamom 2 pc
- Saffron 1/2 teaspoon
- Brown sugar 1 cup
- Dry ginger (optional) a small piece
Instructions
- Blanch the almonds by adding almonds to boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes. After that add cold water and drain the liquid. Dry them with a paper towel and peel off the brown skin.
- Roast almonds, pistachios, and cashews separately. And then add all the ingredients to a blender.
- Blend them properly for 10 to 30 seconds or until the mixture is smooth.
- Sieve the mixture to separate solid particles and blend them again. Continue until everything is smooth and passes the sieve.
- Store in an airtight jar.
Starting The Organic Cashew Nut Powder in Baby’s feed
- You can start giving your child this mix when they turn 6 to 8 months old. Now many parents aren’t quite aware of the allergies their children have so in case your child does not react well, you might as well take him to the hospital and get him checked for allergies.
- You can also make this mix just with cashews by increasing the number of cashews and eliminating other nuts. This will help you give a more cashew-focused flavor profile while. But make sure that you aren’t going too overboard with the mix on your baby’s food.
- This does not go well with the fact that you might be feeding them more cashews than their body can accept.
- Sprinkle it on their food, mix it with milk, add on fruits – just make it easily consumable by the baby. Babies are naturally inclined towards mellower to sweeter flavors. This mix comes with a good amount of brown sugar (which is not bad like processed white sugar), so it’s unlikely that your child might reject the new flavors on their favorite yogurt or fruit.
Conclusion
Cashews are an amazing treat for children of all ages. They are packed with healthy vitamins and minerals that will aid in the healthy development of your child. You can start adding delicious and healthy nuts like cashews to your baby’s diet from a very early age.
Give them flavored cashews in different forms like butter, cream, and a cashew powder mix. You can mix your cashew powder mix into different things that your child likes to eat. Watch out for allergies though.
