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If you notice that children seem less interested in food during a heatwave, you're not imagining it!

Hot weather naturally suppresses appetite. Digesting food creates heat within the body, so when temperatures rise, the body cleverly adapts by reducing hunger to help keep cool.

So what should you do?

Focus on hydration
Offer drinks regularly and make sure water is always within easy reach. Foods with a high water content can help too, such as fruit, vegetables, salads and yoghurt.

Don't panic
A few days of eating less is usually nothing to worry about as long as they are drinking well. Continue offering meals and snacks as normal and trust that their appetite will return when temperatures cool down.

Offer nutrient-dense foods little and often

Large meals can feel overwhelming in the heat. Instead, try lighter meals and snacks such as:
• Sandwich fingers
• Cucumber and carrot sticks with hummus or other dips
• Cheese slices
• Hard-boiled egg quarters
• Mini frittatas
• Wraps
• Watermelon, mango, pineapple or apple slices

 

 

Follow their appetite
Try not to pressure children to eat. Continue offering familiar foods and trust their hunger and fullness cues. Most children naturally make up for reduced intake once the hot weather passes.

Remember: less eating during a heatwave is usually normal. Staying hydrated is the priority ❤️

Salt is an essential nutrient, but in the UK, most of us, including young children, are consuming more than we need. In the early years, where eating habits are shaped for life, understanding and managing salt intake is an important part of supporting children’s long-term health.

Are children eating too much salt?
Across a wide range of studies, children under five consistently exceed recommended salt intakes. This excess salt isn’t usually due to adding salt during cooking or at the table. Instead, the majority of salt in children’s diets comes from everyday, commonly eaten foods such as:

This means that even when meals are prepared from scratch and no extra salt is added, it is still easy to exceed recommended limits.

Why does too much salt matter?
Excess salt intake in childhood has several important health implications:

The early years provide a critical window to shape children’s preferences. By keeping salt intake within recommended levels, we can support healthier outcomes both now and in the future.

Recommended salt intake for children

The recommended maximum daily salt intake varies by age:
0–12 months: less than 1g salt per day
1–3 years: maximum 2g per day
4–6 years: maximum 3g per day
7–10 years: maximum 5g per day
11+ years: maximum 6g per day

Thanks to national salt reduction initiatives, manufacturers have made gradual improvements in lowering salt levels in some products. However, as a population, we are still consuming too much salt overall.

One challenge is that our taste preferences adapt to what we regularly eat. Many adults, and children, become accustomed to salty foods, meaning lower-salt options can initially taste bland. The good news is that taste buds adjust quickly. With gradual changes, most people find they no longer miss the extra salt within a few weeks.

For young children, this is even more important. If they are not exposed to high levels of salt early on, they are less likely to develop a strong preference for salty foods later in life.

Practical tips for reducing salt
Supporting lower salt intake doesn’t mean compromising on flavour. Small, consistent changes can make a big difference:

Shaping habits for life

Eating habits are formed early. The foods children are exposed to in their first years influence not only what they eat now, but what they will choose in the future.

By keeping salt intake in check, prioritising minimally processed foods, and focusing on flavour from natural ingredients, early years settings can play a powerful role in shaping healthier generations.

Easter naturally brings increased exposure to foods such as chocolate and other sweet or celebration foods. If you are a parent struggling trying to navigate the extra chocolate with your little one this Easter, here are 5 ways to keep your cool and support your child’s relationship with food...

1. Remember, chocolate is just food! 

Try not to make it a reward or something to earn. Saying things like ‘you can have chocolate if you eat your dinner’ or ‘only if you’ve been good’ can make it more appealing in the eyes of the child.

2. Avoid overt restriction

Overt restriction means that your child is aware that the chocolate is there, but they are not allowed to have it. The more a child knows a food is off-limits, the more they want it. Instead let them enjoy the chocolate without a fuss, then carry on with your usual food routine.

3. Offer the chocolate alongside other foods

For example alongside a sandwich at lunch time or alongside fruit and cheese at snack time. This helps keep all foods on a level playing field andmoves the temptation to negotiate how much of the other foods should be eaten before the sweet stuff is allowed.  

4. Make celebrations about more than just sweets

Alongside chocolate at Easter include other fun foods such as sandwiches in the shape of a bunny or chick, fruit kebabs or hard-boiled eggs so children see that all foods can be part of the occasion.  

5. Zoom out and focus on the bigger picture
Easter is just a few days. What really matters is how your child eats most of the time. One weekend won’t undo a healthy balanced diet in the longterm. 

Last year, you might remember that we became official ‘keen bean promoters’ as part of the Food Foundation’s #BangInSomeBeans campaign. This year, we’re taking that commitment one step further.

We’re proud to have signed up as Gold Bean Pledgers, committing not only to deliver on the actions we already promised, but also to increase our sales of bean‑containing dishes by 75% by 2028.

Why?

Quite simply, beans are brilliant! And we want children to grow up enjoying them as a normal, tasty part of everyday meals.

The evidence is hard to ignore:

For us, this is about adding even more value to our menus. We will continue to offer a wide range of meat, fish and vegetarian dishes because variety and balance are at the heart of high‑quality early years food. But we also believe it’s our responsibility to respond to the evidence and offer food that is good for children’s health, good for the planet and genuinely enjoyable.

Our pledge is about confidence in the evidence, belief in the food we serve, and a commitment to supporting children’s health, both now and for the future.

Why early years matter

Early childhood is a critical window for shaping food preferences and eating habits. By introducing beans regularly during the early years, when children are developing their taste preferences and learning what foods are tasty and familiar, we help to:

Beans are not a ‘swap’ or a ‘replacement’. They are a positive addition that helps children experience variety while meeting their nutritional needs.

What do we mean by “beans”?

When we talk about beans as part of our Bean Pledge, we’re using the term broadly, in line with the campaign’s definition, to include beans, peas, lentils and chickpeas, foods that often sit under the umbrella of pulses.

This includes:

What makes beans so good for children?

Beans are rich in fibre, protein and key vitamins and minerals, making them a valuable food for growing children.

Fibre: Beans support healthy digestion and can help to prevent constipation. Fibre also feeds beneficial gut bacteria that support immune health. We know that most children do not get enough fibre in their diets, and beans are a simple, sustainable way to help close this gap.

Protein: Beans provide plant‑based protein, which is essential for growth, muscle development and tissue repair - particularly important during periods of rapid growth in early childhood.

Vitamins and Minerals: Beans contain important vitamins and minerals such as iron, which supports brain development, learning and concentration, and zinc, which plays a key role in immune function, wound healing and normal growth.

When beans are offered regularly, in a variety of child‑friendly ways, they help support children’s nutritional needs while also expanding their food experiences.

Our Bean Pledge:
Becoming a Bean Pledger reflects what we’ve always believed: early years food matters.

This pledge reinforces our mission to:

We’re excited to go bolder with beans! If we can help children love beans now, we’re helping to shape healthier futures for years to come.

As we mark Sugar Awareness Week 2025, this year, Action on Salt and Sugar are shining a spotlight on the urgent need for stronger food and nutrition policies that prioritise health and make it easier for families to choose healthier options.

At Nursery Kitchen, we fully support this call to action. We know that children’s early food experiences shape their long-term eating habits, and the food environment around them plays a huge role in that. Hidden sugars, confusing labelling, and halo marketing claims make it far too easy for children to consume more sugar than recommended often without parents or early years professionals realising.

Advocating for change: our CPPG report on early years nutrition
Earlier this year, we, alongside Action on Salt and Sugar, and other professionals contributed to the Cross-Party Parliamentary Group (CPPG) report on Early Years Nutrition – Settings the Standards for Change. The report made a series of strong recommendations to government and policymakers, including clearer food labelling, stronger regulation around marketing to children, and the extension of free school meals to early years settings, all aimed at building a food environment that truly supports children’s health.

This year’s Sugar Awareness Week perfectly reinforces that message: to improve outcomes for young children, we must access to good food easier by ensuring that transparency, not confusion, guides every label, product, and policy decision.

The reality of sugar in children’s diets
On average, children in the UK consume around three times more sugar than is recommended. The consequences of this are stark with rates of tooth decay, childhood obesity, and diet-related illness on the rise. Last financial year alone, tooth extraction under general anaesthetic in children cost the NHS £74.8 million, a shocking reminder of the impact of high-sugar diets on young lives and our health system.

According to the most recent National Diet and Nutrition Survey, most of the added sugars in children’s diets come from foods such as buns, cakes, pastries, fruit pies, sweet biscuits, breakfast cereals, sugar-sweetened drinks, smoothies, and fruit juices. These foods and drinks are often marketed directly to families with ambiguous labelling meaning families are often not aware of their hidden sugar content.

Our commitment to establishing healthy habits early
At Nursery Kitchen, we believe in setting the highest standards for children’s food. We take our role in shaping children’s health seriously and are proud to go beyond existing guidelines in many areas of nutrition but especially in reducing free sugars across all our menus.

Our approach includes:

We also work closely with our nursery partners to consider how children experience, learn and talk about food. Through our training and tailored resources, we support early years practitioners to reflect on how their language, approach, and wider food environment shapes children’s attitudes towards eating, not just what children eat, but how they feel about food and mealtimes.

Shaping healthier futures together
Our commitment goes beyond the food we provide. We support the wider movement calling for clearer labelling, stronger policy, and a fairer food system that makes the healthy choice the easy choice.

This Sugar Awareness Week, we stand alongside Action on Salt and Sugar, and all those working to improve the nation’s food environment. Together, we can help ensure that every child has the best possible start in life, one that’s shaped by nourishing food, honest information, and a culture that values health above all else.

Why Nursery Kitchen supports the #BangInSomeBeans campaign

At Nursery Kitchen, we’re delighted to announce that we are officially ‘Keen Bean Promoters’! We are supporting @The Food Foundation’s #BangInSomeBeans campaign because we want to see a UK where everyone is inspired to enjoy, cook with, and eat more beans.

By including beans in delicious and varied ways across our menus, we’re already helping children, families, and early years settings make beans an easy and appealing choice. But now, as official ‘Kean Bean Promoters’, we have set ourselves some ambitious SMART targets to help reach the Food Foundation’s target of doubling UK bean consumption by 2028!

Our SMART targets are focused on increasing the familiarity of beans, creating and sharing parent-friendly bean recipes, engaging and inspiring early years professionals and enhancing our menu development with exciting bean-based options.

Building bean lovers from the start
Early childhood is the perfect time to explore new tastes and textures. By introducing beans during these formative years, we help children build familiarity and acceptance, laying the foundations for healthy eating habits that last a lifetime. If we want to see a nation that loves beans, it makes sense to start young and nurture that enjoyment from the very beginning.

Why we’re all better off with beans
Beans are a brilliant addition to children’s diets for so many reasons:

Beans on the Nursery Kitchen menu
We’re already big bean champions! Here’s how we use beans across our dishes and menus:

Across our sample menus, we offer between 6-9 child portions of beans each week, featuring a variety of 6-8 different bean types, from kidney beans and chickpeas to lentils and butter beans.

Our commitment
We’re proud to support the #BangInSomeBeans campaign and play our part in inspiring the next generation of healthy, adventurous eaters. By introducing beans in fun and familiar ways, we’re helping children discover that everyone really is better off with beans!

Helping little ones to grow strong and flourish starts with the choices we make every day - and understanding food labels is a pea-sy way to make a real difference!

Our latest guide, Understanding food labels: how much is too much? breaks down how to spot when sugar, salt, or saturated fat sneak a little too high.

With just a few simple swaps, you’ll be serving up meals that nourish curious minds and busy bodies.

What's inside?

Why sugar, salt, and saturated fat matter for little ones

How to read food labels quickly and confidently

Simple tips for making healthier choices that add up over time

 

 

 

 

View guide to understanding food labels

Because small changes help little ones grow strong, healthy and berry brilliant!

Written by Early Years Nutritionist & Feeding Therapist, Catherine Lippe (RNutr), this short guide will support you in choosing foods that help little ones thrive.

Planning nourishing meals for little ones doesn’t have to be tricky. Once you know your food groups, you’ve got the perfect starting point for balanced menus that support growing bodies and curious minds.

Our easy guide takes you through the four key food groups - what’s in them, how often to serve them, and why they matter. Think of it as your go-to helping hand for building variety, boosting nutrition, and keeping mealtimes exciting.

What's inside?

What counts in each food group

How often to offer each one across the day

Simple tips to create balanced, wholesome menus children will love

 

 

 

 

View guide to understanding food groups

From peas and pasta to yoghurt and lentils, getting food groups right helps children feel their best with the energy to play, learn, and thrive.

Written by Early Years Nutritionist, Catherine Lippe (RNutr), this short guide will help you to plan balanced, nourishing meals with confidence.

You’re probably quite familiar with the 5-a-day message but plant points offer a new take on how we can support good health through our diet.

What are plant points?

Whilst the 5-a-day message focuses purely on fruits and vegetables (and remains an important mantra for supporting good health), plant points include not only fruits and vegetables but also whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices.

With plant points, the focus is on variety rather than quantity. So, unlike 5-a-day, where a portion of fruit or veg should be 80g for adults or 40g for children to count, when it comes to plant points it doesn’t matter how much of each ingredient you consume – the goal is to include as many different plant points as possible in your diet each week.

Each plant ingredient counts once, so if you eat broccoli every day with dinner, it will only count as one plant point for the week. However, varying your vegetable choice each day to include broccoli, cauliflower, peas, red pepper, carrots, green beans, and yellow pepper across the week will give you an impressive seven plant points!

What do plant points mean for health?

The benefit of plant points is linked to improved gut health. Research conducted by the American Gut Project demonstrated that people who ate 30 or more unique plant points a week have a more diverse gut microbiome than those who ate 10 or less a week. This is where the target of 30 plant points per week comes from, but the truth is that if 30 plant points feels unachievable for you right now, gradually increasing the variety of different plants in your diet by any amount can still have a positive impact on your gut.

This is because plants contain something called prebiotics which feed the healthy bacteria in our gut. The more these healthy bacteria are fed, by plant ingredients, the more they can grow and diversify which results in trillions of healthy bacteria thriving in our gut and supporting our overall health.

Here’s a quick guide to what counts as a plant point and some top tips about how to increase your intake…

How to increase the plant points in your diet

Fruits and vegetables = 1 plant point:

All fruits and vegetables whether they are fresh, tinned, dried or frozen count as one plant point. For tinned vegetables aim to go for those tinned in plain water and not salted water and for tinned fruit go for those tinned in juice and not syrup.

What’s more is that the colour also matters so, a green apple and a red apple count as one point each – variety in colours means variety in nutrition and more prebiotic fuel for those hungry gut bacteria!

Whole grains = 1 plant point:

Whole grains include

Legumes = a plant point:

All beans, pulses, lentils and other legumes count as one plant point. Again, think about colour variation. Combining both red and green lentils gives you two plant points.

Nuts and Seeds = 1 plant point:

All nuts and seeds count as one plant point regardless of quantity. Sprinkling milled mixed seeds on porridge, yoghurt, soups or salads is a great way to boost your plant point total. With nut butters try to go for minimally processed options with no added sugar or salt.

Herbs and spices = ¼ point:

Black pepper, basil, chives, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, coriander, dill, ginger, garlic, mint, nutmeg, oregano, paprika, parsley, turmeric not only add flavour and colour to dishes, but they all count as ¼ plant point.

Get started with some Nursery Kitchen recipes!

Great for the entire family, Nursery Kitchen recipes are packed full of plant points. We are super proud that our menu contains 40 plus plant points each week, which means children at nursery are receiving tasty meals with awesome nutrition.

View our recipes, HERE.

Children have different nutritional needs to adults and as their bodies develop, these needs change. It is extremely important that the diets of young children are planned to be age appropriate to ensure they have the fuel to grow, learn and play.

Having a tasty, varied, and nutritional diet from the outset helps develop a child’s palate, creating healthy habits that will last a lifetime.

So, what makes up a healthy diet?

Don’t be scared of natural sugars - they can be included as part of a healthy diet

While natural sugars should not be over consumed by any age group due to the energy dense nature of the foods (nutrient dense but also calorie dense), they are safe to be included in early years diets, even though they are sugars. Naturally occurring sugars occur in whole foods, such as fruit. Within that food there is also a lot of fibre, water content, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytochemicals, which have a wide variety of health benefits.

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