Preparing kids' meals that are low in carbohydrates is a tricky endeavor. According to the USDA Guidelines, 45 percent to 60 percent of kids' calories should come from carbohydrates. Planning meals means including more unrefined carbohydrates, basically whole-grain products and fewer refined and sugar-laden food. It's also possible to replace many of kids' favorites with lower-carb versions.
Breakfast
For most parents, preparing a healthy low-carb breakfast for their children probably means eliminating sugary cereals. Help on this front comes from the many manufacturers who are now using whole grains in their cereals and reducing the amount of sugar as well. If kids like hot cereals, steel-cut oats are a good choice. Let them top off their oatmeal with some strawberry or banana slices and add a few chopped nuts. Many toasted whole-wheat breads have a nutty flavor kids like; bagels and muffins are also available in whole-grain varieties, as are pancake and waffle mixes. Eggs contain less than a gram of carbohydrates, so a scrambled egg wrapped in a whole-wheat tortilla is a healthy choice. Kids might like to try low-carb fruits like berries and melons served with yogurt or blended together with some milk and crushed ice to make a smoothie.
Lunch Choices
Replacing the white bread in kids' sandwiches with a whole-grain variety will at least improve the quality of the carbohydrates in their lunches. To actually reduce carbs, parents might try mini-cup lunches by filling five or six small plastic containers with a variety of foods. For fruit choices you might try apple slices, unsweetened apple sauce, melon balls, berries, tangerine sections or pineapple cubes. For protein, including some protein/veggie combinations, try tiny celery pieces filled with peanut butter, whole almonds, hummus with tiny carrot sticks in another cup for dipping, egg salad, cubes of low-carb cheese or raw broccoli "trees" with another cup containing a cheesy dip. Eliminating chips can be less painful when they are replaced with a variety of low-carb whole-wheat crackers. Encourage kids to look at charts of low-carbohydrate foods and help come up with other possibilities for their mini-cup lunches.
Low-Carbohydrate Dinners
Portion control is an important issue in planning low-carbohydrate dinners for kids. Carbs, regardless of how healthy they are, should make up no more than a limited-portion side dish. To increase the nutritional value of the carbs at dinner, try limiting the mashed potatoes to special occasions and trying brown rice or whole-wheat pasta. This pasta tastes about the same when you make spaghetti and meatballs or macaroni and cheese. If you make pizza, stick to thin-crust and whole-wheat choices. Having an at-home salad bar allows your kids to choose from a variety of vegetables to add to their salad. The salad bar can include beans, seeds or chicken chunks for protein. Another choice for a do-it-yourself dinner is to introduce kids to shish kebobs, either broiled in the oven or grilled outside. Kids have fun choosing from healthy ingredients and sliding them onto skewers.
Beverages With Meals
In addition to the health benefits, another reason for a child to drink milk with meals is that it contains only 11 carbohydrates per serving. Soymilk has only four. A child who needs 160 grams of carbohydrates a day consumes one fourth of that amount drinking one can of soda. Although unsweetened fruit juices do add some nutrition, they also contain an average of 27 grams of carbs. Powdered fruit punch and lemonade mixes contain an average of 37 grams of carbohydrates.
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