Healthy Food Choices for a Birthday Party

Birthday parties are great times to share healthy, fun foods with friends and family. Try these tips for buying foods for birthday parties in this healthy shopping video.

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Avoid commercially made pizzas
Make a low calorie Angel Food cake
Try light beverages & avoid soft drinks
Vegetables & fruits make great finger foods

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Michelle Cooper has been a registered dietician for more than 10 years. She currently works for the state of North Carolina for the New Hanover County School District in the Child Nutrition Department as the supervising registered dietician on staff. She specializes in child nutrition, child fitness and overall child health. She enjoys her job because it allows her to be a pivotal piece of child development.

MICHELLE COOPER: Next, we're going to talk about birthday parties and healthy options. You go to any kid's birthday party today and you usually see the same array of foods: a commercially purchased pizza, sugary soft drinks or a fruit juice box, and a fat laden cake with refined flours, and whole ice cream. Why not try something different next time, a healthy alternative. Maybe you can get the kids to make their own pizza. You could purchase a whole wheat crust, such as the one behind me, add your own tomato sauce, sprinkle it with a light part skim mozzarella cheese and add some vegetable toppings, then instead of getting a fat-laden cake that you usually buy from the deli, how about making an angel fruit cake which is naturally lower in calories and has no fat, adding some whipped cool whip for the top and some fresh strawberries. Rather than supplying them with sugary soft drinks and juice boxes, how about water or a light lemonade as a healthy alternative. Some other ideas for some healthy foods that you could have at birthday parties would be some finger foods such as small baby carrots, pieces of broccoli and low-fat ranch dressing for dipping. Also you can have some cut-up fruits, cut up into the shapes of smiles or animals or that sort of thing. Be creative, kids like not only to eat food, but they like food that looks good as well, and they like things that are bite sized. So when planning your next party, try a healthy alternative like making your own healthy pizza, try using angel fruit cake or a lighter version of the fat-laden cake you'd find at the deli. Instead of ice cream, opt for non-fat frozen yogurt, sherbet or ice milk. And lastly, why not supplement with something like some fresh fruits and vegetable and water rather than sugary soft drinks and candy.

Healthy Food Choices for a Birthday Party Video

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