Getting your kids to eat healthy is not always an easy thing to do. There are so many bad outside influences and temptations for them. They are surrounded by unhealthy food choices. Commercials for fast food, colorful sugary cereals and candy filling the grocery aisles and checkout lines, and then there are the school lunches ( I don’t even have to explain that one ).
I just decided that I wasn’t going to buy any of that kind of stuff so that at least it isn’t in our home. I had a special shelf that was just for the kids snacks and I filled it with healthy choices. They could help themselves when it was snack time. They really enjoyed being in control of what they had for snack. On that shelf would be things like Laura Bars, because most of them only contain dates, nuts and other dried fruit, rice crackers, unsweetened applesauce, and snack baggies filled with nuts and raisins. I always have a huge bowl of fruit on the counter that is easily accessible and allow them to help themselves any time they are hungry.
When were out and about, I would always try to pack plenty of snacks. If I wasn’t that well organized, instead of going through a drive through we would go to the grocery store. I would tell the kids they could pick any one fruit in the whole store. They would get so excited to have that much control and as an added bonus they would usually try something that they hadn’t tried before!
As far as meals go, I never made and still don’t make kiddy food. I make a healthy meal and that is all there is. My kids never had a chance to be picky eaters. If they didn’t really like the meal, there was always the fruit bowl and I didn’t feel bad about that. I knew that at least they would be eating something healthy. What also helped greatly was to include them in the preparation of the meal. They were much more likely to eat if they had a part in making the food. They both gained so much skill and confidence by helping me that by the time they were around 9 years old, they were preparing meals by themselves. I would usually have to leave the kitchen of course because I would try to help and they really didn’t want me to. Also because it drove me crazy how many dishes they would use and then there was the mess. Oh the mess. . . . I really had to let it go because how else are they going to learn. They always help clean up! Now, my girls are 15 and 17 and they can cook 3 course meals easily for all four of us and the meals they create are always delicious. Sometimes more delicious than I can make!
Here is one of their debut shows.
