Calling all Super Heros! Home childcare providers are most certainly Super Heros for the incredible work they do in shaping little lives. Although this work includes shaping values, personalities, and attitudes, a major piece of your hero work involves developing healthy habits in young children.
Childcare providers have a powerful opportunity to instill healthy habits in young children that serve as the foundation for healthy choices in life. USDA, through it’s Team Nutrition, provides guidance, resources, best practices, and training for CACFP (Child and Adult Care Food Program) operators in a variety of settings to support them in a providing healthy, blanched meals and snacks to the children they serve.
According to the USDA, the nutrition standards for meals and snacks served in the CACFP are based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which are science-based recommendations made by the National Academy of Medicine. Cost, practical considerations, and stakeholder input has also been factored into the USDA requirements. The results are some very good guidelines, intended to help providers make good nutritional choices. However, the. guidelines allow for many products that are not nutritionally dense.
What is nutrient density according to the USDA?
Food packed with nutrients, with no or limited sugar, saturated fats, or salt added to it is considered nutrient dense.
Choosing to serve the best nutrient-dense foods helps kids get the nutrients they need while limiting overall calories. According to the Mayo Clinic, nutrition for kids is based on the same ideas as nutrition for adults.
Everyone needs the same types of things, such as vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, protein, and fat. These are called nutrients. But children need different amounts of specific nutrients at different ages. The best eating pattern for a child’s growth and development considers the child’s age, activity level, and other characteristics.
What are Best Practices in the CACFP?
USDA also developed OPTIONAL Best Practices that build on the meal pattern requirements and highlight areas where childcare providers may take additional steps to improve the nutritional quality of the meals they serve. Most of the best practices focus on increasing consumption of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, and reducing the consumption of added sugars and saturated fats.
Do you want to serve the best meals you possibly can to the children n your care? Commercially processed foods like fish sticks, frozen pizza, french fries, and macaroni and cheese might possibly meet the requirements, but foods like this have little to no nutritional density. We can do better!
Let’s have a look at the optional CACFP Best Practices.
Vegetables and Fruit
- Make at least one of the two required components of a snack a vegetable or fruit.
- Serve a variety of fruits and choose whole fruits (fresh, canned, dried, or frozen) more often than juice.
- Provide at least one serving each of dark green vegetables, red/orange vegetables, beans/peas (legumes), starchy vegetables, and other vegetables once per week.
Grains
- Provide at least TWO servings of whole-grain-rich grains per day.
Meat and Meat Alternates
- Serve only lean meats, nuts, and legumes.
- Limit serving processed meats to no more than one serving per week.
- Serve only natural cheese and choose low-fat or reduced-fat cheeses.
Milk
- Serve only unflavored milk to all participants. If flavored milk is served to children 6 years old and older, use the Nutritional Facts Label to select and serve flavored milk that contains no more than 22 grams of sugar per 8 fluid ounces, or the flavored milk with the lowest amount of sugar if flavored milk within this sugar limit is not available.
Infants
- Support mothers who choose to breastfeed their infants by encouraging mothers to supply breastmilk for their infants while in childcare and offer a quiet, private area that is comfortable and sanitary for mothers who come to the daycare home to breastfeed.
Additional Best Practices
- Incorporate seasonal and locally produced foods into meals.
- Limit serving purchased pre-fried foods to no more than one serving per week.
- Avoid serving non-creditable foods that are sources of added sugars, such as sweet toppings (honey, jam, syrup), mix-in ingredients sold with yogurt (honey, candy, or cookie pieces), and sugar sweetened beverages (fruit drinks, sods).
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by keeping more on your mental checklist while preparing meals, but like the idea of adhering to the Best Practices, don’t despair!
This is why we made our meal plans for home daycare providers. We incorporate these optional BEST PRACTICES into every week of menus that we send out. By using our menus, we will do your meal planning for you so you can do the hard work of making meals and caring for littles.
We use our 30+ years experience to create the most nutrient dense menus possible for the least cost and waste. We want to lift this burden for you, the Childcare Super Hero, as you instill healthy habits in young children.
Remember, healthy habits create lifelong healthy choices!