DESIGN YOUR PIZZA!

Always a favorite! Make it even more fun by designing faces, spiders or patterns with your toppings. For a face, use olive bits for eyes and ears, a red bell pepper strip for the mouth, a mushroom wedge for the nose, and grated cheese for the hair. Make a spider with an olive or mushroom for the body and strips of bell pepper, carrot, cheese or other topping for the legs. Use your imagination for your own designs.

You can make this pizza with whole-wheat English muffins for individual kid-sized pizzas or with thin pizza crust (available in small or full size). For the English muffin, toast a muffin half to make it crispy. Then, for either the muffin or pizza crust, add a thin coating of pizza sauce or pasta sauce (full of antioxidants), some chopped fresh vegetables of your choice, and a generous sprinkling of low-fat cheese. Place in the broiler or toaster oven (for muffin or small-size pizza) to melt the cheese, let it cool enough to eat, and then enjoy.

NAME YOUR FAVORITE FOODS!

Name vegetables and other foods after your kids' favorite cartoon characters or favorite names! My grandson loves to call broccoli "trees" and bananas are "bam" for energy! He loves hamburgers and calls himself "Powerman."

Help your kids name their favorite foods, or share the names of my characters from my site and my upcoming book. Get creative and teach your children to love their fruits and vegetables! This is a great way to introduce nutrition knowledge at an early age and instill a positive message that your children will take with them for the rest of their lives.

Here are examples from my children's book. Try it yourself. Let me know some of the imaginative names your children and you come up with.

VEGETABLES

Broccoli — Trees
Spinach — Ironman
Tomato — Big Red

FRUITS

Banana — Bam
Apple — Crunch
Orange — Big O
Strawberries — Juicy

MEAT GROUP

Beef — Powerman
Turkey — Gobble

MILK GROUP

Cheese — Smiley

GRAINS

Oatmeal — Tiny Bits

JASPER'S SMILEY FACE

Here is one of Jasper's favorites. It can be breakfast or a snack. With a little help from mom or dad, kids can make this themselves.

You will need:

· One slice of whole-wheat bread
· Organic almond butter (If you don't have any allergies, you can use peanut butter)
· Part of a banana
· Raisins
· Dried apricots
· Carrot curls (Ask your parents to help)

How to make it:

1. Spread almond butter on your bread.

2. Make a face like this (or make your own design):

· Use banana slices for eyes
· Use dried apricots for ears
· Use raisins for the nose
· Use another half apricot for the mouth (or use raisins)
· Use carrot curls for hair