Kid-Friendly Eggplant Pizza: Your Kids will Beg for More!
Getting Our Kids to Eat Healthy
The world is bombarded by junk food ads;
on television, in magazines, on the store shelves, and in vending machines. Kids are offered a plethora of junkie food stuffs in school lunches, not to mention the snack and cola machines on school premises.
We can’t single handedly control what all children eat, but we can make a beginning by changing what our own children eat. Since most kids want to eat junk foods most of the time, here is a way to fool your kids into thinking they are still eating what they love, while you sneak healthy foods into their bodies.
This kid-friendly eggplant pizza puts a pizza they love in their hands, nutrition in their tummies, and a smile on your face. By using slices of eggplant as the “crust” of the pizza, you add tons of nutrients to your child’s meal, including healthy fiber, potassium, vitamin K, and vitamin B6.
What are the health benefits of eggplant? Eggplant is low in saturated fats, sodium, and cholesterol, and is may also help lower cholesterol. It is thought to help regulate Type 2 Diabetes, which is affecting more children than in the past. Eggplant is a wonderful diet aid to use if weight loss is the goal; however, if weight gain is the goal, consuming of too much eggplant can be the wrong way to achieve that goal.
Michelle Obama Realizes the Costs to Youth from Unhealthy Eating Choices
“For the first time, the nation will have goals, benchmarks, and measureable outcomes that will help us tackle the childhood obesity epidemic one child, one family, and one community at a time,” Mrs. Obama said. “We want to marshal every resource - public and private sector, mayors and governors, parents and educators, business owners and health care providers, coaches and athletes - to ensure that we are providing each and everychild the happy, healthy future they deserve.” Michelle Obama
What is in That Slice of Pizza?
Almost every child loves pizza, that’s a given. Unfortunately, most pizzas are loaded with fat and calories, some up to a whopping 1000 calories for just one slice. In fact, it is typical for one slice to have anywhere from 300 to 500 calories, and 14 to 32 grams of fat. Even Domino’s healthier version of pizza has up to 9 grams of fat per slice. Since a typical teen may eat at least half a pizza, that’s a lot of fat to potentially clog up those young veins.
What can we do? First, we can make commercial, restaurant pizza a once or twice a month treat. Better still, let it be a side dish to a healthy salad, making the meal a big salad with a slice or two of pizza instead of half of a pizza with a side salad. Next, on pizza day at school, make their lunches and send them a much better and healthier version of pizza. Last, when our kids have that pizza attack, take care of it at home with a healthy pizza, complete with a yummy crust made from vegetables.
Before we talk about how to prepare the pizza, let’s compare the nutritional information between regular pizza (which we just discussed,) a lower fat and calorie whole wheat pizza crust, eggplant, and our eggplant pizza.
Nutrition Facts per 2 ounces Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat Pizza Dough:
- Calories 130
- Total Fat 1.5g
- Cholesterol 0mg
- Sodium 240mg
- Total Carbs. 24g
- Dietary Fiber 3g
- Sugars 0g
- Protein 4g
- Calcium 20mg
Eggplant: Using eggplant as the crust for the pizza does two things; removes the carbs in the crust, and adds the nutrients in the eggplant. We’ve talked about how many calories, and how much fat is packed into a couple of slices of pizza, now let’s look at how many nutrients are packed into a few slices of eggplant.
Per 3.5 ounces of eggplant (several slices):
Nutrition Facts:
- Calories 24 calories
- Fiber 3.4 grams
- Fat .19 grams
- Protein 1.02 grams
Eggplant Pizza Nutrition
- And finally, the eggplant pizza, per 1 large eggplant and the toppings below:
- Ingredient Amounts:
- 1 cup tomato sauce
- 1 large eggplant
- 4 teaspoons Parmesan cheese
- 1 cup Kraft Fat Free Mozzerella cheese (or choose a part skim cheese)
- 8 slices Canadian Bacon
Nutrition Facts_:_
- Calories 139
- Total Fat 4.8g
- Saturated Fat 1.6g
- Cholesterol 30mg
- Sodium 1152mg
- Total Carbohydrates 10.9g
- Dietary Fiber 4.8g
- Sugars 5.3g
- Protein 14.4g
Make Simple Kid-Friendly Eggplant Pizzas and Delight Your Kids and Yourself!
It’s a snap! All you need to make this pizza is:
- Eggplant
- Reduced fat cheeses
- Reduced fat pizza sauce
- Canadian bacon
- Cooking spray
- Cornmeal for dusting the pizza pan or cookie sheet
- Buttermilk, fat free yogurt, or reduced fat ranch dressing.
If you haven’t done much cooking with eggplant, you might want to read “How to Select, Cut, and Store Eggplant,” for a few tips before you get started on your pizza.
Just dip the eggplant slices into the buttermilk, and then lay on the cornmeal-dusted sheet. Pile on the ingredients like you would any other pizza; let the kids help, that makes them even more likely to eat healthy foods. To make this eggplant pizza even healthier, why not grow your own eggplant? You can find out everything you need to know by reading “How to Grow Eggplant in a Container.”
If you don’t dare show your kids what you are using for the crust, don’t worry. You don’t have to tell your kids what this kid-friendly pizza is made from, even after they love it. Often kids will love a dish, and then reject it once they find out what was in it. Otherwise, your child will love helping you make these, and kids love finger foods. These are great for adult parties, too.
Look for the next part of this series, “How Do You Get Your Kids To Eat Healthier?
References
(Web) Whitehouse.gov CNN, Michelle Obama on Nutrition, accessed 08/08/2010
(Print): Rinzler, Carol Ann. Eggplant Nutrition Information. The New Complete Book of Food; 1999
(Web): Elements 4 Health. Eggplant Nutrition Information.
(Web): Kraft Corporation. Kraft Fat Free Nutrition Information. Mozzarella Cheese Nutrition Information.
(Web): Live Strong. Canadian Bacon Nutrition Information.
(Web): Live Strong. Trader Joe Nutrition Information.
Photo Credits
Failure, Vending Machine, Romford BR Platform 5 by Salim Fadhley. Flickr.com
Pizza Pie by Linda Brewer
Eggplants by Cliff Hutson. Flickr.com
Kid-Friendly Eggplant Pizza, Precooked by Linda Brewer
This post is part of the series: Fool your kids into eating healthy
Most kids don’t like the taste of anything good for them, preferring hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza to healthy, nutrient filled vegetables and fruits. This series will help you learn ways to trick your kids into eating healthy foods.
