How to buy nutritious food for kids off the shelf

For all the mothers in the world, nurturing the kids with best quality food for their growth and development secures the top-most priority.

When the new-born grows up into cute little bundles of joy, parents prefer to introduce variety of solid food items to develop their taste for flavours early on.

Yet, the fact remains that most babies and kids pick up eating of solid food items, gradually. It takes multiple efforts of a mother to make the little ones accept solid food of different varieties and flavours to complete the required amount of nutrition.

Popular solids food for babies primarily comprise of oatmeal, cereals, and fruits extracts; with variety of other starchy veggies, which keeps the mothers engaged for hours in preparing the food.

However, the busy schedule of new-age mothers can make it difficult for them only prepare home-made nutritious food for their children.

This has pushed demand for notorious food items in the commercial baby food products and the market is therefore flooded with many products that claim to aid children with required growth elements.

Right from flavoured milk powders to kids cooking oil and everything in between are available on the shelf. But how can the parents select the best food item for their kids?

Easy tips for picking best-quality kids' food

While the market is flooded with both commercially made and organically prepared food items, keeping the quality of the food intact with zero-compromise on nutrition can be an invaluable addition for the mothers looking to get safe and healthy food options for their little ones.

Listed below are some clues to help the new mothers in identifying the best available off the shelf food options in the market these days.

♦    Check the iron content in the food as initial years of growth are crucial for brain development.

♦    Look for veggies based off the shelf baby food and stay away from packets which are high on sugar and preservatives.

♦    Avoid baby food which containing add-ons preservatives, starches or thickening agents. Such type of food can cause bloating of stomach or pain.

♦    Check the label and kind of packaging also very carefully as not every baby food labeled as organic will be free from any foreign entity to enhance the taste of food.

♦    Double-check the manufacturing date always while buying the baby food.

Elaborating on the kid's food market further, and to share knowledge with the new mothers, knowing about existing kids' food brands and new ventures is a must.

While existing brands have been providing good quality off the shelf kid's food options, there are some new kids food ventures also, which are coming up with safe and innovative approaches in food preparation.

These baby food start-ups are into launching highly nutritious food items specifically for infants such as Kids Cooking Oil with all necessary nutrients like Iron, D3, and B4 for kids' development.

Also, break-through concepts like eco-friendly kids' food, made organically without usage of any chemical is rising as the newly discovered concept in the under-explored space of kid's nutrition.

- The writer is a Founder and Head Brand Strategist of Mother Sparsh