Textbook Mommy: Is Your Child Getting All the Nutrients They Need?

With children growing up faster than parents can keep up with, it can be difficult to remember all the dietary requirements growing children need. Ensuring that children consume the recommended amount of proteins and nutrients can be tricky, especially when a lot of children refuse to eat anything that resembles a healthy snack.

Proteins are essential to help further a child’s growth and maintenance of the body to ensure that bones, muscles and cartilage remain strong and healthy. Protein can be found in fish, eggs, lean meat and bean products.

Fruit and vegetables are able to provide us with all the wonderful vitamins and minerals that keep our bodies performing as best as they possibly can. This involves improving skin, gums and immune systems. While carrots making us see in the dark is a myth, vegetables do contribute to improving eyesight.

Having an intake of dairy or calcium helps with bone growth and the building of strong teeth. For children in their growing years, this is an important area of nutrition that should be monitored.

As many parents know; veggies, proteins, fruits and dairy foods can all be difficult to convince a child to eat without correct tactical planning.

‘Otto the Octopus’

Creator of Cresco Baby, Eleonora, grew up in Italy where she had been brought up with nutrition and dietary needs in mind. She has a background in pharmaceuticals and nutritional development and wants to ensure her children gain the right proteins and nutrients to keep them strong and healthy. However, like many other children, Ele’s kids also put up a tussle when given healthy food and so she found a way to make healthy eating a playful experience which requires little effort and mess.

Enter ‘Otto the Octopus’ that allows the act of eating healthy food to be seen as a game. Parents or children are able to place their ingredients in Otto’s main chamber and mash the food together to make great meals. Otto’s design has been tested and approved by children and has even won the A’ Design Award 2018 based on innovation, technology, design and creativity.

Otto is simple to use and children love it! But one of the best things is how easy it is to clean. Just pop off the top and swill with warm soapy water, dry with a towel, and it is ready to be used again.

Otto will be available for pre-order July 3^rd 2018 on Kickstarter. The RRP is £25, however, the first 100 people who order will be able to purchase at a discounted price of just £15! Sign up to our mailing list on Cresco Baby’s website at: http://www.crescobaby.com/ to be among the first notified of the Kickstarter’s release. Soon Otto will be available for all to enjoy.

Ele has provided some personal recipes that she uses to help ensure her children get the right amounts of nutrition in their diets.

Protein meal:

Mash together diced up cold tofu, white and black beans, along with boiled egg yolk, avocado and soft cheese to create a yummy protein-based meal. This is Eleanora’s go-to when wanting to create a meal that is rich in protein. Once Ele has prepared all these ingredients, her children are able to make this one all by themselves.

Dairy meal:

One of Ele’s kids goes crazy for grated cheese. Therefore a mix of shredded and cottage cheese is mashed into Otto which Polly goes crazy for.

Fruit and Veggie meal:

Another favourite of Polly’s is the carrot smoothie ice-pop. Steam an apple and carrot until soft. With one slice of a carrot, two peeled apple slices, ½ cup of plain yogurt and a dash of cinnamon. Mash all these together in Otto and it is ready to be pressed out with Otto’s plunger.