Pattie's Tips for Increasing Calories

When my boys were little (especially my middle son) we tried everything to get him to gain weight. In one year, even though he was eating large amounts of food, he only gained about 4 ounces!

These are some of hte things we did to increase calories in hopes he would gain weight. Once he started enzymes, he did a lot better!

• Melt butter on the stove or microwave and pour melted butter over pancakes, french toast or regular toast and other foods
• Use cream with a bit of water as a substitute for milk in recipes
• High calorie snacks like Cracklin Oat Bran give you more bang per bite! (You can make snack mixes with cereal, nuts and butter--bake in the oven for a great treat)
• Use Scandical in low calorie foods like applesauce to increase calories, it also works well in spaghetti sauces and other drinks.
• Scandishakes are great! I waited until after meals to offer these...and we were getting 2100 calories a day in scandishakes alone for my middle son.
• Use butter to cook vegetables (at one point we had a doctor tell us not to give our son vegetables because they lack calories. I thought that was crazy because I wanted him to like vegetables when he was older--so I opted to add butter)
• Flaxseed Oil can be added to canned peaches, etc to boost the calories. Scandical works a bit, but doesn't really mix with slices of peaches or fruit.
• Use Whole Milk Yogurts, cheeses and sour cream. These items can be hard to find (although with the recent news about whole milk being better for diabetics, things are turning around!) Stonyfield Farms makes excellent whole milk yogurts.
• We made a lot of high calorie fruit smoothies. You can add whole milk, cream, ice cream or whole milk yogurt to increase calories. We even made smoothies using Scandishake powder.
• Protein powder can be added to oatmeal and various other foods to increase calories and nutrition.
• As our children became older, we started using shakes like the Zone instead of Scandishakes because the enzymes were working and these shakes did not contain the sugar that carnation instant breakfast and Pediasure contain.
• Zone bars. My children still love Zone bars as snacks.
• Nuts- my children love peanuts, cashews and almonds.
• Wheat Germ- you can add toasted wheat germ to baked good or even sprinkle it on yogurt for added calories and nutrition.

Scandishake has recipes available on their website and a free cookbook offer. Scandishake recipes