WELCOME TO A WORLD …

… where kids can have their treats and eat them too!

I’m so glad you are here! Naturally Sweetened Kids is a place where you will find tasty solutions to the sweet-treat dilemmas you face with your kids every day. You know the ones. Like when your child comes home from school or a friend’s house with a highly processed treat containing 30 grams of refined sugar.

You don’t want that going into your child’s body. Your child won’t ultimately feel good for it. His health might even suffer for it. But your child craves a treat and will feel left out (and quite possibly hangry) if he doesn’t get one like his friends “always” do.

This is where I come in to make your life easier, less guilt-ridden and more satisfying – and your child’s too!

This is that little spot on the internet you’re going to want to bookmark for easy access, because this will become your official naturally sweetened breakfast, snack and dessert recipe book. I created this website for the purpose of giving you a variety of options when you need a sweet for your sweethearts that won’t spike their blood sugar, trigger behavior issues or aggravate ongoing health problems.

THE MISSION OF NATURALLY SWEETENED KIDS

The mission of Naturally Sweetened Kids is simply to make your life as a parent easier and less guilt-ridden as you search for new ways to wholesomely feed hungry little mouths that crave tasty treats. I hope to take a load off of your shoulders by providing you with a wealth of healthy recipes that are both deliciously sweet and nutritionally sound for your children.

I know what it’s like to be constantly trying to come up with unprocessed new edible options for picky kids who have a dominant sweet tooth. And I’ve used my own solutions to this problem (my own created recipes) to build a recipe site that will help solve your problem as well.

You have enough to worry about as a parent. Overwhelm is everywhere. It’s easy to reach for a quickly accessible pre-packaged snack to throw at your kids as they head out the door (and, by the way, I’m not judging – we all do that sometimes to survive), but figuring out healthy alternatives for your family does not have to be another thing on your list of things to do.

Leave the breakfast, snack and dessert planning to me. I’ve figured out how to make delectable sweets with completely natural, unprocessed sweeteners like dates, raw honey and maple syrup so that you don’t have to. No more choosing between health and taste for your children. You can give them both!

ABOUT THE RECIPES

There is more variety available in the natural sweetener world than you may have realized when it comes to baked goods and treats. Many people think that you cannot substitute table sugar in a muffin, a brownie, or a birthday cake and still get a good result or a desirable texture. But that is simply not true.

No more choosing between a store-bought, sugar-filled cake and a homemade, dense, flavorless cake for your child’s birthday. Make your child a light and fluffy, delicious vanilla cake with buttercream frosting and jam filling, all without a speck of processed sugar. Or make a decadent chocolate cake with rich chocolate tahini buttercream frosting. Or, go with strawberry cake pops, every kid’s delight!

And don’t be fooled into believing that your child could never enjoy a chocolate cookie or a popsicle sweetened with dates. My own daughter is a very picky eater, and yet she loves the treats I make with healthy, unprocessed sweeteners.

Once you begin to bake with nature’s unaltered sugars, you will realize there are so many delectable delights that can be replicated in healthier ways for your children. Let these recipes gently guide your family into a healthier diet without missing the joys of decadent desserts and sweet muffins for breakfast.

As a mom to two young daughters who have each had their own particular dietary needs at various points in their lives, I have been on an evolving journey of protecting and feeding my kids’ health since my first pregnancy began. And my ideas of what makes food healthy have changed as my children’s health needs have changed.

I’m going to be straight with you: I believe there is no one-size-fits all model of healthy eating for our children.

Over the years, I have gone through phases of changing how I managed my children’s diet to line up with whatever health situations they have faced at a given time. Throughout my parenting years so far, I have experimented with variations of diets that promote gut health, tooth health, appetite health, psychological health and overall health.

For a time, it was necessary for my older daughter to refrain from almost all carbs and sugars as much as possible. At that point, I used sugar alcohols such as xylitol to sweeten our baked goods and desserts. At another time, it was necessary to feed my younger daughter anything high-calorie she would take simply to get her to eat enough, regardless of the ingredients.

And still other times, I completely fell off the wagon and barely adhered to very blurry boundaries on how much junk food and processed sugar was okay for my children to consume.

My children are now in a place where I can be a little bit flexible, but I also need to limit processed sugar as much as possible. My goal for my children’s diets at this stage is to nourish them sweetly and holistically. They can have their cake and eat it too, as long as it’s made with nature’s unprocessed sugars that can actually benefit their health instead of take from it.

All of that is to say that health is a journey, and so is the process of learning how to work with our kids’ taste buds in a nutritious way. My desire is that Naturally Sweetened Kids helps you on your own health journey with your children.