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Easter is just around the corner. The supermarket shelves are adorned with chocolate eggs, chocolates, sweets, cakes, hot cross buns and a myriad of other Easter edibles. Whilst they all look and taste great, they can also spell disaster for our teeth (and waistlines) if we are not careful – and children are at the greatest risk.To help make your family’s Easter a little more tooth-friendly, we’ve prepared 5 suggestions to help cut back on the sugar this Easter.

1. Crafts and creativity

It’s easy to forget that Easter eggs don’t have to be made of chocolate – and indeed in many countries they are not. Nobody said that they must be filled with sweets either. With such an excellent range of crafting materials available both online and in high street retailers, why not unleash your creativity and craft an egg themed gift that contains something your children can play and engage with rather than eat?

For bonus points, you could even make an egg out of paper mache or something similar and put something educational in it. An hour or two spent online searching for ideas could easily pay itself back with less time at the dentist in the future!

2. Easter Baskets

Another great way to avoid the temptation of over indulging in chocolate eggs is to prepare Easter baskets filled with a range of offerings that excludes sugar and sweets.You could colour code the baskets to each child’s taste and make the gifts relevant to their interests – think football, animals, cartoons and the like… Lego, puzzles and stickers are all also great ideas which can be easily themed for Easter.

If you don’t fancy getting the paints out, wrapping paper, stickers, ribbons and other materials are all easy to obtain and make for mess free manufacturing. Children’s magazines can also be a great way to get themed materials that you can repurpose for your project.

If you choose to involve the children in either of the above, you could also add a recycling theme into the equation and get them to repurpose leftover containers etc from the kitchen.

3. Have your eggs – and eat them

If you really want to enjoy an egg sharing session with edible eggs, why not substitute chocolate eggs with real ones? In some countries such as Poland, it is still traditional for children to paint and decorate hard boiled eggs. On Easter Sunday, families an egg smashing competition at the table before eating the eggs as part of a special Easter breakfast.
A quick look online should be enough to find food-safe egg dyes, which in conjunction with wax crayons can make for a highly enjoyable activity session with completely sugar free edible results. Not only will you keep the kids busy during half term, you’ll also be encouraging them to get involved in the kitchen.

4. Nice and nutty

Another approach to Easter edibles is healthy, wholefood snacks. Nuts, raisins and savoury snacks can be used to great effect. Experiment with organza bags, tissue paper, decorative foil wrap (the type often used for flowers or bottles) or any other material with which you can fashion an attractive pouch and fill it with the most healthy and natural munchies you can find. You can then add ribbons and other decorations to give them that final touch. Of course, do be careful of choking hazards for smaller children.

5. Discover the dark side

Did you know that dark chocolate usually contains much less sugar than milk chocolate? If you really do feel the urge to have some chocolatey treats of your own creation to indulge in during Easter, a simple way to substantially reduce the amount of sugar used is to substitute milk chocolate with natural, unsweetened dark chocolate. Just be sure to check the label to make sure that you really are cutting down on the sugar content.

If you want to go a step further, you may also wish to bake with sugar substitutes. There is a plethora of mouth-watering low sugar Easter recipes to be found online.

Here at the award winning Sharoe Green Dental Practice, we pride ourselves in offering a proactive approach to dental care and are always open to new patients. As part of our continued commitment to offering the very best in dental care, it is our pleasure to welcome some new members to our team this month – dentist Lizzi and apprentice nurse Victoria. Keep an eye out to learn more about these two fantastic team members in next month’s blog!

To book an appointment now or enquire about becoming a member, call today on 01772 718753.