Make Your Own Hummus—Let Your Children In On The Fun!

Humming Hummus

One of my all time favorite concoction to eat is hummus.  

It is delicious, nutritious and tastes nothing like chicken!

Classic hummus

Rightfully so—a child’s taste buds should be opened to a variety of foods—so, use hummus as a go to snack of humongous proportions! Mostly used as a dip, an assortment of edible digging utensils adds to the lovely nutritive value of this chow. Skip those salty potato chips—instead have your children cut cucumber chips, slice up carrot, celery, and sweet pepper sticks—even radish slices. Rad right! Use your own favorite vegetables for the children to clean, prep and eat as hummus scoops. Come to think of it, I’ve used tomato wedges also! Pita wedges are popular but I don't use them—prefer blue corn chips—infusing some Tex-Mex flavors (see Additional Ingredients list below.)

Creating Future Foodies

 Go Ahead and Give Your Toddler a Kitchen Knife*

A child in the Amazon rain forest "was playing with a sharp kitchen knife, about 9 inches in length. He was swinging the knife blade around him, often coming close to his eyes, his chest, his arm and other body parts. When he dropped the knife, his mother—talking to someone else—reached backward nonchalantly without interrupting her conversation, picked up the knife and handed it back to the toddler."

Gupta explains that there's an evolutionary argument for allowing children to learn how to work with dangerous food implements. David Lancy, an Anthropologist and author of The Anthropology of Childhood, says childhood used to be filled with tools, such as hammers, mortars, pestles and machetes to break open foods like coconuts.