Food storage and preparation for babies Essay

What is your understanding of the term â€Å"Balanced diet† This term is often used in connection with healthy eating and means a diet that has sufficient nutrients in the right quantitites for children and adults. The â€Å"Eatwell plate† shows the five categories of nutrients. To be considered balanced all meals, snacks and drinks taken throughout the day, when considered as a total package must povide children with sufficient nutrients. How do you educate the children in your care about healthy eating? We don’t specifically educate the children in our care about healthy eating as we are not open all day long. However, the snacks that are available to the children are always healthy snacks such as fruit. We also encourage children to take one piece of food at a time to enable us to monitor portion control and encourage the children to stop when they feel that they have had enough. Any children who are â€Å"fussy eaters† are encouraged to sit with their friends and try things that their friends are eating. We are always on the lookout for children with food phobias or if any child never wants to have a snack so that we can speak with their parent/carer to ensure that they are able to seek further guidance if required. If we ever have food that would not be considered â€Å"healthy† such as cake, biscuits, ice-lollies, it is always very clearly stated that the children are having a special treat that day and the children are always encouraged to play an active ga me (outside if possible). Explain how to store expressed breast milk safely according to health and safety guidelines In our setting we don’t deal with young babies so don’t have to store expressed breast milk, but if we did the department of health recommends the following guidelines for storage; Up to 5 days in the main part of a fridge, at 4 degrees celcius or lower up to 2 weeks in the freezer compartment of a fridge  up to 6 months in a domestic freezer, at minus 18 degrees celcius or lower. Breast milk that has been frozen can be defrosted in the fridge. It can then be served straight from the fridge rather than warmed.