Cooking World

Fruits, berries, vegetables and potherbs are an obligatory component of children food. They are an indispensable source of vitamins C, Р, provitamin A (carotin), easy digestible carbohydrates - glucose and fructose, organic acids, pectin and dietary fibers, some minerals and microelements.
Daily ration of a child of 1-3 years should contain enough fresh vegetables (1-1,5 years - up to 200-250 g, 1,5-3 years - up to 350 g), and also fruits and berries - (1-1,5 years - up to 100 g, 1,5-3 years - up to 130-200 g). They are useful both raw (provide good training of a masticatory apparatus and a gastrointestinal tract), and as fresh juices rich with vitamin C.
Every day a child in the age of 1-1,5 years needs about 80-100 ml, and 1,5-3 years - 100-150 ml of juices.

From vegetables the most frequently used are potato, carrots, cabbage, turnip, beet, vegetable marrows, pumpkin and tomatoes. Green-stuff and wild-growing greens are also very popular (provided absence of specific contra-indications) - fennel and salad, spinach and parsley, sorrel, green onions and garlic, ramson, nettle.

From fruits parents can choose from apples, pears, plums, bananas, citron and tropical fruits. From berries - raspberry and a blackberry, ash berry, gooseberry and sea-buckthorn berries, and also bilberries, red bilberries, cranberries.
All seasonal fruits, berries, vegetables and greens in a natural kind are useful for the child. They also may be given as juices and purees, or used in compotes.