In conversation With Moms & Co-Founders of Kids’ Food Brand Slurrpfarm on Healthy Eating For Kids

All the parents to young kids out there, we know eating habits of your little munchkins is always a concern. Right? How much sweet is too sweet or how much wafers are bad for them? And then there’s always the question of junk food. There’s just so much to deal with when it comes to kids’ eating habits. And we’re sure a little help is always welcome. So, we got in touch with Meghana Narayan and Shauravi Malik, who are moms themselves. The duo started an innovative and healthy kids’ food brand- Slurrpfarm. And we got them to reveal some interesting insights on how to make kids eat healthy. Read on!

Tell us about Slurrp Farm. It seems to be a really unique concept.

Slurrp Farm is a kids food company with a mission to provide a healthy snack and meal options to young children and their parents. At present, we offer a range of nutritious and delectable organic baby cereals (for toddlers), cookies, millet based dosa pancake mixes and snacks made with natural ingredients, whole grains and essential minerals and vitamins- crucial to a child’s overall development. Based on traditional home recipes from our grandmother’s kitchen, Slurrp Farm cereals are packed with the balanced goodness of super grains – millets (ragi), oats, amaranth, red rice and lentils (green moong).

What all products do you have for kids?

Our cookies are all-natural, made with real butter and not laced with excess sugars. Millet Dosa’s are loaded with – Ragi, Urad daal, Red rice, Oats and Suji. Then we have Millet Pancakes and the latest addition to our offerings are The Mighty Munch & Mighty Puff. The products contain no added artificial colors, flavors, stabilizers or preservatives. All the recipes are high on nutrition from whole grain flours, millets, good fats like butter, real fruit and vegetables.

What has been your biggest challenge while setting up Slurrp Farm?

Once we started our company, we realised that execution is the biggest challenge. Another key challenge has been the sheer difficulty of making something you would in your own kitchen, work from a commercial and process perspective on a larger scale. It’s hard to fix our badly broken food system, but innovation lies in simplifying.

What healthy food habits you would advise parents to inculcate early in their kids?

It is imperative that we teach our children healthy eating habits. The fact is that eating habits our children pick up when they are young can help them maintain a healthy lifestyle when they are adults. As parents, we want to ensure that our kids eat healthily and live healthily. This need not necessarily mean that we push them. First and foremost, as moms, we advise- against pressuring your children to eat. Avoid using food as a reward or punishment. But, essentially, you must ensure there is enough stock of healthy foods at home.

Thumb Rule: Too much of anything is bad for you! Just as you can’t be too nice, too sad, so happy, too rich, similarly your food can’t taste too salty, bitter, sour or sweet. There must be a right balance because an excess of anything can be harmful.

Shop Right: Every parent wants the very best in life for their child. Food is at the heart of this daily endeavour. But sometimes the best is not available, or too expensive, or takes too long to cook. Unconsciously, we often find ourselves running around with our kids while sharing a store-bought oat bar with them, instead of a more elaborate home-made evening snack. That shouldn’t be the case.?

Which Slurrpfarm products would you say are hot sellers and most popular?

All the products are hot sellers. Right from our baby cereals which are perfect once a child is weaned onto solids, pancakes, dosas and cookies, our Mighty Munch and Mighty Puff (crunchy-munchy snacks for everyone!)- they are made as you would make them at home.

If some kids are particularly fussy eaters, how can parents handle that?

It’s almost impossible to stop your child from eating junk food completely. Rather than having an absolute “NO” rule, it’s best to act smart in your kitchen. Break the monotony to avoid ‘food- boredom’. Remember, children are more likely to get uninterested and crave for junk food if we are serving the same old daal-roti-sabji day in, day-out! Jazz it up for them! Add some new and different food (styles and shapes) to your child’s diet regularly. The more variety you provide your child at home, the less likely he/she is going to crave junk.

Also, try different cooking methods—for example, you could decorate a regular ragi pancake (Slurrp Farm’s Banana Choco-chip or Chocolate & Supergrains pancake) with banana or cut apple/strawberry slices. Now that’s a meal in itself! Or prepare healthy dosas from our selection and serve them piping hot with homemade chutneys.

What are some fun as well as healthy food options parents can feed their kids?

During snack time, you could offer our cookies (made with real butter and zero transfats). We don’t add any synthetic flavors, preservatives or stabilisers. Just wholesome natural ingredients from a mother’s kitchen) or ragi and jowar-based munchies (fun starry snacks made with ragi and jowar available in three amazing flavors) to beat the hunger pangs.

Okay, mommies and daddies, we hope you all took notes and are ready to make these fun yet healthy recipes for your young ones!