I have been struggling this week, trying to think of new ideas for food to feed Jacob.  As you may remember Jacob has food allergies; many many food allergies and it is making it tough for me to feed him as he is getting pickier.  To be precise, he is allergic to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish… he is also eating gluten-free because of my celiac disease.  Well, picky toddlers are hard enough to feed without all of these added restrictions and I was really starting to run out of ideas.  But this week I asked some friends for ideas, researched some things on the internet, and went back through my recipe books.  I still don’t feel like my repertoire is big enough but it is growing at least.

When I was at Whole Foods a couple of days ago, I was searching for tahini to make Jake a new hummus recipe.  Well, because tahini is sesame paste it is with the peanut butter, an area of the grocery store I don’t usually look at because he is allergic.  Right next to the tahini I discovered Sunbutter, sunflower seeds that are ground up into a peanut butter like substance.  I thought I’d give it a try, and brought it home and it’s really not too different from peanut butter.  It tastes a little more like sunflower seeds, but still delicious (I love peanut butter).  Jake would only barely try it the day I brought it home, but later I gave it to him on apples and he loved it!  As you can see he went to town with it.

For anyone else in the same boat as our family, here is our list of snack ideas so far:

Sunbutter with apples, crackers, celery, etc.

Mary’s Gone Crackers – Jacob really likes these and they have whole flax and sesame seeds so I think are pretty healthy.  They do contain soy however if that is a concern.

Hummus with crackers, chips, or vegetables – I started with hummus and crackers for him and now he loves hummus.  I’ve now started putting the hummus on vegetables and he pretty much just picks the hummus off and eats it, but he’s eating a little bit of the broccoli and cauliflower which I think is a good thing.

Hummus with vegetables mixed in – I cooked some spinach and processed it in a food processor and mixed it in with his hummus yesterday and he looked at it funny for a minute or two, and then ate it just like normal!  I’ve seen some other ideas to mix pureed beets or carrots into hummus also but haven’t tried it.

Popcorn – I pop it myself over the stove with some canola or corn oil and then add seasoned salt.  Some websites say popcorn is a choking hazard so be careful with this.  I always pick out the unpopped hard pieces before I give it to him.

Roasted pumpkin or squash seeds – We’ve had a lot of winter squash this winter and I always roast the seeds because Jake will actually eat them.

Fruit – He won’t always eat plain fruit cut up, but every once in a while he will.

Breakfast smoothies – We have these for breakfast almost every morning, we no longer add the protien powder, but have started adding liquid probiotics to them which studies are starting to show may help reduce food allergies

Kale chips – I made some this morning and then saw this recipe with paprika and garlic on them which looks pretty tasty.  Jake actually likes kale this way, so it’s a good way for him to get some greens.

Chips or crackers and salsa -  Jacob loves salsa!  He’ll even eat plain canned tomatoes if I tell him it’s salsa…. sometimes you have to resort to trickery to get kids to eat!

Avocado – Jake went through a phase where he was eating 2 whole avocados  a day!  He won’t eat that much anymore but still loves it, and it’s really easy to cut one up.  I just read that if you have half an avocado left if you refrigerate it with the pit and some lemon juice on top it will keep better and keep it from browning as much.  They are expensive so I’m excited to try this.

Dried fruit – These are almost like chips, crunchy and sweet and usually just have the fruit and maybe cinnamon as an ingredient.  These are a big hit in our house.

I think that about covers the snacks he eats now.  Please let us know if you have any other good ideas, and to my friends that already helped contribute ideas thank you, we’ll be trying the recipes soon!!