When it comes to food, kids can be very hard to please. Mealtime can be stressful for parents with children who are picky eaters. The struggle worsens when certain fruits and vegetables are added to the mix which prompts many parents to come up with ways to sneak them into the meal.
But, one mother is doing things very differently.
Laleh Mohmedi, a food artist and mom to four-year-old Jacob, has figured out a creative way to incorporate healthy foods into her son's diet and it has captured the internet's attention.
The Melbourne-based mom uses her artistic skills and experience with food styling to assemble the food on her son's plate and results are amazing. She shapes the food to resemble some of Jacob's favorite animated characters to get him excited about every meal.
"On May 2015, I turned my son's spelt pancakes into a lion -- he absolutely loved it and it progressed from there. He now tells me which characters he would like and I then research the character and think about what ingredients I can use to make the creation." Mohmedi wrote on her Instagram Jacob's Food Diaries.
Laleh draws inspiration from Disney, Pixar and a few other animated movies and TV shows. She's recreated characters such the Minions, Simba, Tigger, Goofy, and Kermit the Frog. She uses a wide variety of foods including vegetables, fruit, pasta, beans and meat.
The eye-catching designs are shared on her Instagram page which now has over 100,000 followers.
Laleh explains that with the other challenges of parenting and her job, she doesn't have the patience to create these masterpieces at every meal so she limits them to a few times a week.
"I make these creations around 2-3 times a week," she says. "They don't take much longer than making a normal fresh meal. To save time I prepare all the cold elements such as the features whilst the hot elements are cooking."
The talented mom also shares the ingredients that make up every meal so other ambitious parents can recreate them.
Here are a few creations from Jacob's Diaries for you to swoon over:
You can check out more of Laleh's work on her Instagram page here.
How do you get your child to eat healthy food? Let us know in the comments!
