Precautions For Winters and Healthy Eating.

Winter is here and the nice weather also gets lot of things other than festivals with it. Our children are more likely to get cold, cough, flu, viral with the change in weather. We need to take special care of them as their immune system is not yet built totally. So I guess we need to take care of lot more things like clothes, food, ready medicines and home remedies.

Clothes:-

• Make them wear many layers of clothes. Multiple layers of thin clothes are much more effective then a single layer of thick clothes. Multiple layers help keep the body heat insulated, and protect them from outside cold.

• Make sure that you cover their three vital heat leaking parts of the body: the head, the hands and the feet. let them wear a warm woolen caps at all the times ( I know they are fussy about it but we have to make them wear) . socks, preferably woolen, and never expose the hands. If you are going out, make sure that they wear gloves, or at least keep your hands inside the jacket packets to help them keep warm

Medicines:-

Take a Doctor appointment for flu shots. Make sure you have the kids medical boxes full with the medicines they use as prescribed by the Pediatrician. I always prefer them in a box handy near the bed so that it is accessible any time you think you need it. NEVER USE ANY MEDICATION WITHOUT THE DOCTORS CONSENT.

Healthy laddu

Winter is here and this is a very good way to start for our kids to have a great immunity towards the cold and can be given any time. But this should be taken with a glass of milk. I used to eat this daily as a kid and loved it. This was kinda bribe for me to have the glass of milk as I used to hate drinking it. So for fussy moms this is my moms trick to give me milk. Another thing I remember eating as a kid is soaked almonds overnight and drinking the water first in the morning after you brush and eat the almonds they help in regulating the body temperature.

Healthy laddu ... healthy snack..
3 spoons of ragi flour
2 spoons of whole wheat flour
1 tps of olive oil ( good for health when eaten raw)
2 tps each of cashew nut powder, almond powder and
4 tbps groundnut powder
3tps of cornflakes and oats powder
3 tps spoons of roasted moong dal powder
2 tps of pure ghee

grated or crushed jaggery as per your sweet taste please try to put jaggery then sugar as jaggery is good for health.
you can also add some more things as you feel like raisins, small small pieces of dry dates, some more dry fruits powder. All this should be fine powder so as children should not find lumps while eating it. Mix it well and you can roll them into small laddoos and not big ones so that the children will hold them in their hands. if they are not consistent to be rolled in laddoos add more ghee and jaggery . they will form into laddoos. and give 1 in morning and 1 in evening for healthy n nutritious snacks.

Ragi Idly

You will need:-

Whole Ragi Grain- 1 cup
Idli rice (parboiled) – 1 cup
Whole skinned Urad dal – ¾ cup
Methi seeds -1 tablespoon
Salt to taste
Oil- to grease idli moulds

washes soak the ragi for 3-4 hours (longer than you soak the rice) Soak the rice, urad dal and methi seeds in separately 4-6 hours or overnight.
In a mixie /blender, grind the urad dal till light and fluffy.
A test for fluffiness is to keep a bowl ofwater and drop a tiny pinch of batter. If it floats, it is light enough.
Then add and grind the Ragi grains and Methi and finally the rice.
The rice should not be ground too smooth. It should be of Rava consistency. Alternatively, you can use rice Rava instead.
Take the batter in a vessel, add in some salt to taste and leave it to ferment. Next morning, lightly stir the well-fermented batter.
Grease Idli moulds and steam in a pressure cooker for 12-15 minutes till done.