When it comes to spending time off kitchen, the next thing that comes your mind is to order something. Families that have kids often settle for pizzas as they come cheap and are usually enough to fill the belly. Pizza topped with various ingredients such as tomatoes, onions, capsicum and other are so relishing that you cannot keep yourself from having one or two slice.
Children are even bent on having pizzas than any other healthy food. Most of the time, the leftover of last night is kept for morning breakfast as children are willing to eat that part too. But, this needs to be stopped now. Though pizza has all the best ingredients like veggies still pizzas are not for health if taken continuously.
Chicago style pizzas, American pizzas have found place in our hungry heart. However, the point to be noted is that these pizzas are loaded heavily with cheese and sauces that are not good for health. Therefore, there is need to stop kids from having this junk food right away.
What Makes Pizza So Bad
Whenever the weekend comes, the craze for pizza among kids can be easily seen. However, pizzas are not healthy and brings with it a lot of issues.
High Extent of Sodium
Pizzas are made with a combination of cheese, vegetables, meat and sauces that add up a lot of sodium. Pizzas that are frozen and kept overnight to eat the next day will result in increases the blood pressure. Eating such pizzas that are stale develop bacterias overnight will cause acidity and your child might face stomachaches.
Pickles Used are Preserved
Pickles are used as toppings on the pizza are often preserved using salt in order to delay their decaying. However, most of us fail to understand that preserved food is high in salt and thus high case of sodium intake. The longer these toppings are preserved and are dipped in vinegar, the higher the content of sodium.
Is your Child Obese
Our children’s often settle for margherita pizzas that are full on cheese. Moreover, a number of pizza options are available such as double cheese and cheese burst that are high in calorie content. Children feed on these pizza which so much interest but in the long term they lead to obesity. Cheesy pizza are not easily digested and also disturbs the stomach.
How to Give Your Kids Healthy Pizza Alternatives
Yes pizzas are not the right breakfast or evening snack and therefore alternatives have to be proposed that can keep intact the interest of your child in eating. To feed your child with authentic pizza, home-made healthy pizza recipes can be made. Some of the healthy pizza recipes include:
The Perfect Homemade Dough
To give a homemade touch to your pizza and serve healthy food, the dough using flour can be made at home. Making dough is not difficult as it involves flour, salt and yeast, choosing the flour that is not fattening such as multigrain flour can be used for the dough. Such flour will have high nutritional value.
Conventional Tomato Sauce
Sauces brought from the market are preserved using salts and other preservatives that are harmful for the child’s health. Therefore, all mothers out there must prepare the sauce with fresh tomatoes at home. This will be best alternative for pizzas bought from other pizza shacks.
Authentic Toppings Including Sprouts
Rather than using frozen meat or any other stale toppings for the pizza that are high in trans fat, mother can start using other healthy options like legumes and sprouts for kids that will give them the required nutrients. Also in this way, your child will start to eat food that they otherwise used to avoid. Toppings such as green leafy veggies and fibre foods can also be added.
The Bottom Line
If your child loves eating pizzas and depend on this more than required, then it is a cause of concern. Going forward, it can face difficulties in digesting food and will get obese. Smart eating strategies for your child needs to be devised by reducing sodium intake, trans-fat and high salt food with other healthy options like salads and sandwiches.