Healthy and innovative recipes for kids by Rakshita Dwivedi

Hi guys, as yesterday was Children’s day, we are celebrating this week as Children’s health week and bringing in experts. Today’s expert is Rakshita Dwivedi.

Rakshita is the founder of Recipe Dabba, a place for healthy choices. Recipe Dabba is an outcome of Rakshita’s passion, interest and skills and this six months old venture of hers has been one of the most loved thing happening in Navi Mumbai. While her workshops designed for young kids are trying to break the stereotypes and helping kids learn cooking as a life skill, the DIY kits are preparing them for a holistic way of looking at culinary art.

Rakshita’s inspiration is little Medhansh, her baby, who is her biggest critic too.

We had a chat with Rakshita today and asked her a few questions about children. Here is what she had t say:

Me: Hello Rakshita. You conduct so many workshops for children. What is your experience of cooking with them?

Rakshita: Children by far are much more adaptive than we adults and that is why I love working with them
They are receptive and at the same time curious to know more and explore more. Though when it comes to food they do come with pre-choices but that’s only because they haven’t given themselves time to develop taste for a certain thing. Once they are made responsible and are appreciated they can do wonders with food.

Me: What are the myths that parents have regarding food and children?

Rakshita: Parents have many myths like “children don’t like healthy food”, “being picky is natural to all kids”, “kids are too young to cook” and so on and so forth.
All these are our ways of justifying certain actions. If a child doesn’t know how to read..we take efforts to teach them..same is true for food. It has to start very early…the more food textures they get exposed to, the more developed palate they would have. They eat with eyes first and you need to make it attractive. They aren’t conscious about nutrition but why would they not eat anything tasty? While junk is overloaded in our system, reaching out to it is as easy. Hence you as a parent have to be mindful of making them reach a healthier version.

Me: Anything you would like to say to the parents?

Rakshita: Kids’ food demands and appetites are different than us. We need to help them understand themselves, appreciate their choices and motivate them rather than making food a rule-book which essentially no human follows. Neither you..nor me 🙂

So true, we break the food rules all the time….

Here are some of Rakshita’s innovative and healthy recipes for kids. Children get bored easily and want variety all the time. These recipes will definitely come in handy at such times. So let’s check out the recipes.

PEAS PESTO PASTA

GREEN AND RED VEGETABLE ROLL