If you are anything like me, you love food but don’t always have time to cook everything from scratch. Which is completely okay! But also means we have to purchase pre-packaged foods.
While it is okay to make convenience or snack foods as part of a balanced lifestyle, one of the keys is to REMOVE the PACKAGING when serving these foods.
Colors, familiar & favorite TV/book characters, and all other aspects of packaging play a role in marketing… especially to little ones.
Having foods in a certain package can actually increase picky eating, preferences, and increase brand-specific requests.
Kids see their favorite characters on packaging and it’s no longer applesauce, it’s “Paw Patrol Applesauce” which from what my child will tell you “tastes wayyy better than regular applesauce” even though they are the exact same product. The only difference is the packaging.
And that marketing ploy works! It sells products!
But it also increases a child’s likelihood to become “stuck” on that one specific brand of food and less flexible to try others.
Removing the packaging can be a huge help when combatting picky eating!
Ditch the packaging (recycle when possible!) and serve these foods alongside other foods to help make them part of a balanced “mini-meal” rather than a snack on their own- when possible!
Side note: Prepackaged foods can make traveling and being out during the day more feasible, DO NOT feel bad about bringing these foods and serving them in their packaging when you need to. This is a judgment-free zone!
Snacks with Jax 