Here's 3 Tip's to Improve your Child's Gut Health

As parents, we want the best for our children. It’s only recently that we have learnt how important gut health is for babies and children.

How often does your child get sick? Do they have allergies, get a facial rash when they eat or suffer from eczema?

Gut health helps us nurture the good bacteria in our babies and kids tummies, allowing the microbiome to thrive. And as we all know Happy kids means happy parents!

Here are 3 hacks to introduce gut health as a focus for your family and a great way to start your families journey to optimum gut health.

It’s far cheaper and easier to start with diet than to end up spending time and money on doctors and medicine.

The Ossa family believe in the healing power of natural food. It should not have to be time consuming or complex to whip up a lovely meal that kids will enjoy AND that heals and seals the gut at the same time.

As with a lot of parents in today's world, greens are seen as fun when whipped into green smoothies. Eggs are revered as the protein powerhouse and I have seen many kids at our local café eating poached eggs with avo while sipping on a smoothie.

Starting good diet habits at a young age is important, as parents we are creating a the foundation of gut health for the next generation. Myboys have grown up on Apple Cider Vinegar and they adore our ACV tonic, a great subsitute for sugary juices and soft drinks.

It is an exciting time as kids are taught today to enjoy food. We have moved on from low fat cardboard breakfast of wheat and sugar and we are learning how to nourish our children with good fats and a diet that aids brain function, digestive issues, allergies and eczema with far more impact than the medicine prescribed to cover these symptoms up.

The developmental years are so important. The speed and agility of the human brain in the early years can be helped along with a solid diet that encourages children to eat and enjoy fat, another cornerstone of gut health.

We are huge believers in tallow, grass-fed butter and ghee, raw cream and avocados with every every every meal.

Here are 3 top tips to get your kids gut health happy and thriving

Gut health Tip 1

Don’t be afraid of fat! We love the school of thought of the Weston A Price foundation . Our family adores butter. We use one of the few brands available in the UK shops that is from grass fed cows. These are Kerrygold or Yeo Valley to begin with. We often buy up to 10 sticks at a time of salted and unsalted. Having used so much butter at home for its amazing lipid profile, its high level of CLA, Vitamin A and K and is a healthy, natural and nourishing source of fuel for your body.

Gut health Tip 2

Use The Bone Broth as a base when cooking for your little ones. We all know how hard it is to get nutrients into our kids diet without tricking them. When you use The Bone Broth as a base for their soups, stews, roast potatoes sausages and scrambled eggs, they get amino acids, collagen protein and minerals with the added flavour punch. Here is a recipe we love and adore that incorporates a whole heap of gut healing goodness including our beloved raw ACV (apple cider vinegar) with the mother. The boys adore it and every time someone we know has a baby, we bring them a huge casserole dish of this glorious and nourishing real food dish.

Gut health Tip 3

Don’t make up your kids mind about food. How many times have your seen parents apply the pre-determined thought about a food group or item to their children. “It is a leek, he will never eat it” or “It is spicy, they won't like it.” Do you know how well children adapt to flavours when inutero? I ate so much chilli when pregnant with my first child, he can handle a very spicy flavour and enjoys it with glee. He is also a massive fan of octopus. We have told him wonderful stories of how you can cook it and then did it together, letting him try it out for himself. Your kids will surprise you if you let them.

This recipe is his favourite and it’s fun to shop for all the ingredients too.

With that said, we also have days when the only thing that will fly is pasta and in those times, I actually wash the starch off the pasta thoroughly (try buy rice noodles if you can as they are naturally gluten free) I boil it in an entire bag of The Bone Broth and add a scoop of grass fed collagen powder which beefs up the protein content. I then add a generous knob of good butter and you have made a fortified pasta that you can be proud of full of collagen protein, gelatin and good fats.

This is just a small start but a big difference all begins with a few simple changes.