Bananas: Bananas reduce stomach acidity and keep your child’s potassium level in check. Potassium helps regulate the body’s blood pressure.

Rice: Rice is a quick source of carbs and protein and it helps when a child has diar­ rhea. It’s easy to digest and provides and energy.

Apples or Applesauce: Apples are easily digestible (important for already aggravated tummies) and provide a good source of sugar and vitamins, which provide energy for your ailing youngster.

Toast: Serve dry toast. It helps provide carbs and often settles the stomach.

If you choose to follow a vegan diet, pay more attention to the food balancing act and be highly organized with regard to the following issues:

Calcium: Calcium is a mineral that’s mostly present in your child’s bones. A calcium-rich diet helps meet daily requirements for the devel­opment of strong bones and teeth in children. Calcium thrives in many foods: broccoli, sweet potatoes, great northern and navy beans, and leafy greens. You can also provide calcium through soymilk or orange juice that is fortified with extra calcium.

Calories: Ensure that your child receives enough calories each day. In general, if your child eats a well-balanced and varied vegetarian diet, gains weight, and has plenty of energy, he’s probably getting enough calories.

Iron: In general, the absorption of iron from meat, chicken, and fish is higher - around 15 to 30 percent - than other sources, such as fruits and veggies, which have absorption rates of only about 5 percent. Although some vegetables and fruits contain iron, that iron is usually not absorbed as readily as the iron from meats. You may need to give your child iron substitutes to make sure that he’s getting enough.

Protein: Make sure that your child gets enough protein and amino acids by serving a balance of grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, vegetables, and fruits.

Vitamin B12: This vitamin is found only in animal-derived foods, so your child may need to take supplements or eat vitamin B12-fortified foods such as soymilk, fortified cereals, meat substitutes, and nutritional yeast.

Vitamin D: Most children don’t have problems with vitamin D deficiency because the human body makes vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. This vitamin is present in fortified milk, egg yolks, and fish.

Zinc: Your child may need to take supplements or eat foods that are for­tified with zinc to get enough of this mineral. The best sources of zinc are meat and yogurt. Zinc is also found in whole grains, brown rice, legumes, and spinach.

Don’t just use the Internet as your main source of information. A strict vegetarian diet is challenging and requires planning and knowledge. Many claims on the World Wide Web are wrong and simply push a vegetarian agenda.

Seek the advice and help of a registered dietician so you can make certain that your child gets a well-rounded, healthy diet that promotes growth and development. A pediatrician can also point you in the right direction con­cerning resources to help.

products, but exclude eggs and all meat. Vegans are pure vegetarians (also called strict vegetarians and total vegetarians) in that they exclude all animal-derived food. In the end, the kind of diet parents follow typically determines the diet the child follows.

At a basic level, a vegetarian diet avoids all meat and sometimes animal prod­ucts, opting instead for a diet of only vegetables, fruits, grains, and nuts. Challenges exist in an adult vegetarian diet, and you have the same obstacles with a child’s diet, but namely in the areas of protein and milk, which young children must have for proper nutrition.

Pediatricians argue among themselves concerning the safety of a vegan diet with children. Naturally, vegetarian diets that permit dairy are easier to manage because you can derive more calories, calcium, and protein from products such as milk, cheese, and yogurt. Those diets that allow eggs also have more flexibility because eggs are high in protein, and you won’t have to look hard for other sources of protein. A strict vegan diet has some greater challenges, such as the following:

• Vegan diets tend to be lower calorie and higher fiber diets - both of which aren’t good for young children due to their eating habits and immature digestive track. Because babies and children need more milk products and sufficient energy to support growth, provide a greater soy and tofu base to build the calories.

The small quantity of food consumed by a child from a vegan diet at one sitting fails to provide enough energy from that quantity of food. A child’s small stomach often becomes full before an adequate amount of food is eaten to meet nutrient and energy needs.

• Children need higher levels of fat for brain development. Fatty foods, such as whole milk, provide a necessity for children.

Choose firm, but pliable fruit. That’s right - avocados are a fruit, and like a banana, they turn soft after they’re ripe. So your first clue to a ripe avocado is firmness. Avocados that are too hard aren’t ripe, and ones that are too soft are overripe.

Look for an even unblemished texture. Avoid bruises, soft spots, and hollows between the flesh and skin. Shake the avocado to test it. If the pit is loose, don’t buy it!

Ripen your avocados at home. Simply place the fruit in a brown paper bag and store it at room temperature out of sunlight for three to five days. Put a banana in the bag with the avocado and it will ripen more quickly.

Prevent darkening. The flesh of the avocado quickly begins to darken when exposed to the air, so it’s important to work quickly with the “meat” after the avocado is cut. Add a lemon wedge to it - the acid in the lemon will slow down the darkening process. Also, keeping the pit of the avocado with the avocado insides slows down darkening as well.

Slice the avocado. Slice the avocado lengthwise all the way around to the pit. Then gently twist each side in the opposite direction to separate halves. The pit should remain in one side. Slip a large spoon  between the skin and the meat and scoop out the flesh or peel and slice. Wrap it tightly to store it in the refrigerator for one to two days.

In the mornings, your body’s glucose is at an all-time low because you haven’t eaten anything all night. You’ve heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and we couldn’t agree more. Breakfast replaces the body’s already low blood-sugar levels and gives you energy to face the day.

So write this statement on a bunch of sticky notes and spread them through­out the house, chant it daily for 30 minutes, or do whatever you need to do to remember it: Don’t skip breakfast! You may have developed that habit your­self, but it really is a bad habit for both children and adults. If you have this bad habit, it will probably rub off on your children, so now is the time to make breakfast a priority in your home.