Getting your toddler to eat healthily can be a struggle, but we have experts on hand with advice

Our expert columnists share their knowledge and parenting tips in every issue of Absolutely Mama. Here we find out a little about healthy eating for toddlers from Mark Salter from For Aisha Baby Food.

Mark can you tell us a little about the inspiration for your healthy recipes for little ones? 

In last month’s ‘ask the experts’ column I answered the question about how to ensure that your little one won’t be a fussy eater during their important years of growth and development; my top tips are to make meals fun by providing variety, interesting smells, tastes and textures by introducing exotic ingredients such as herbs, spices and pulses to your little one’s diets.

Also to crucially avoid sugar (even fruit based fructose) – which is known to be one of the key reasons why many little ones have a limited palate.

Now having the pleasure of working with Absolutely Mama for the rest of this year, for each edition we will be going on a taste adventure to new destinations –some may not be so well known as having such beautiful and healthy cuisine as they do.

Take Cambodia for example. The region is famed for its temples but one of my lasting memories of this country was it’s amazing Fish Amok Curry.

With some careful filleting of bones, I knew right away that the combination of healthy white fish with it’s omega3 and VitaminD, it’s tummy settling ginger & lime and its calcium-enriched-lactose-free-lovely-coconut milk, this would be a hit with little ones and with their grown ups. As soon as we arrived home, we started working on this recipe and it’s definitely one of our new favourites.

Over the next year I’ll be sharing this and many other exciting recipes that we’ve developed here at ‘for aisha’.

We’ll be exploring far-flung regions of the globe – travelling there together to discover healthy ingredients and authentic recipes that can be crafted at home especially for your little taste adventurer.

Mark Salter is the founder of for aisha baby food – a major UK infant food brand, pioneering exotic tastes for little ones