Let me start off by saying that our family is still on the journey to a whole foods diet and is not practically perfect in every way. I just try not to look when they drink soda at birthday parties, haha! But we have made great progress in the last few years and my kids are generally non-fussy, green-thing eating little people.
But it’s been a process, when Luke and I were newly weds I used to buy cans of Campbell’s soup. Now you have to keep in mind that he grew up farming and ranching and he knew what real food tasted like. He drank raw milk from the cow he milked himself, ate pastured meats and elk and venison they hunted, a lot of vegetables from their 2-acre garden, and fruit from their trees. Pair that with tons of outdoor play and it’s no wonder him and his brothers and sisters all enjoy vibrant health! So back to the canned soup. The poor guy just couldn’t stomach the salty, foreign substance. He wanted to be loving towards his new wife so he didn’t say anything but he really only ate a few bites and just went hungry on canned soup nights. Luckily I started making more soups and stews from scratch (much to his relief!) and now we joke about it.
But not everyone has a palate calibrated towards real foods, and our kids can be the worst. It doesn’t help that our culture pushes pressed chicken nuggets and goldfish crackers at them as if that is all they would ever like. So how do we get them excited about our efforts to eat healthy food? Well I’ve compiled 8 tips to help along the way.
1. Start small with breakfast: If there’s anything that is going to cause crying fits in your home its getting a large garbage bag and filling it with everything from the pantry while loudly declaring that no one is going to be eating any of this junk anymore! You’ve got to start small and I think the best place to start is breakfast. You are eating breakfast right? If not, this is a really (REALLY!) great place to start. I recently broke up with breakfast cereal (it’s not you it’s me…) because even the “healthy” stuff is just sugary carbs. It made my kids be bonkers and get hungry an hour later. So despite its convenience, it had to go. We now make eggs and oatmeal most of the time, weekends sometimes get pancakes and bacon or sausage. Steel-cut oats, while nutritionally identical to rolled oats, has a different glycemic index. Which means your body digests it slower and your blood sugar doesn’t do as big of a spike and dive. I add salt, butter, milk, honey, maple syrup and sometimes vanilla extract or cinnamon to it while it’s cooking and then top with fruit, walnuts and milk. Now steel-cut oats reheat really well, unlike rolled oats which get gummy. So triple it so you can eat for a few days without the long cooking time. We eat pasture raised eggs from our hens, but you can use eggs from the store too for a protein rich breakfast. I like to cook a ham steak to dice up in it or use leftover meat and veggies in the eggs. Then of course top with salsa and avocado (is there any other way?!). Even if the only thing you change in your family’s diet is going from a sugary breakfast (or no breakfast!) to something like this then you have made HUGE strides!
2. Let your kids help cook: All of my kids think it’s fun to help cook but my six-year-old, Audrey, loves it the most. And since she is always first to run and help, she tends to get to do more in the kitchen. Her favorite job is washing and chopping vegetables and it is no coincidence that if she wants a snack she goes for the produce drawer and will chop a bell pepper or eat snap peas. She does this way more than the other kids and I think it’s because she has been exposed to it and involved in it more than them. But all of them are much more likely to eat their meal with gusto when they helped make it. So gets those kids into the kitchen!
3. Take them to a farmer’s market or local farm: Nothing will make your kids more excited about eating real foods than meeting the people who grow and raise it. Make sure they see farm animals and know that is where meat, eggs and milk comes from and let them see vegetables and fruit growing in the garden and on trees. Let them pick out fresh produce from the farmer’s market and talk to the farmers there. Growing a garden will get them connected to their food too. If you pick only one thing to grow make it sweet, cherry tomatoes. They will start to learn (in a fun way!) that these real foods are nourishing for their bodies and will start to look at the processed, packaged foods with more skepticism.
4. Get rid of sugary drinks: I know an ideal diet would only have sugar from fruit in it, but if you are trying to not have your family rebel on you this is a good place to start while leaving occasional desserts alone. In addition to drinking plenty of water, we keep tea and coffee at home and my kids love making their own tea with a little honey in it. For a special treat, my eight-year-old daughter, Hannah, loves to make everyone homemade lemonade and in the winter hot chocolate from an all-natural mix. Yes, it’s made with sugar, but remember the above disclosure about not being practically perfect in every way? They also like making fizzy water with the soda stream and adding lemon to it. They do sometimes have sugary drinks at parties or restaurants but we choose to not dwell on it. Oh, almost forgot, this goes for juice too! We have it occasionally but it’s got all the sugar from the fruit with none of the fiber. Just eat the fresh fruit instead.
5. Keep dinner simple: If you are just getting started with whole foods, don’t overwhelm yourself with feeling like you need to know how to cook a ton of healthy recipes. The beauty of good quality food is that you don’t need to do too much to it and it will be delicious. Meat can just be seasoned with salt and pepper, maybe some garlic. Vegetables and potatoes can be coated in olive oil, seasoned, and roasted in the oven or on the grill. It’s OKAY if your Tuesday night dinner just feeds everyone something nourishing without flash and pizazz. Follow the Meat + Veggies + Starch (potatoes, rice, beans, lentils, etc.) = Dinner. Soups and stews get all of that in one package. And kids usually eat veggies more readily when they taste like meat, two for one!
6. Talk about “All the Time”, “Sometimes”, and “Never” Foods: While we’re going slow in adding more whole foods and removing more processed foods talk to your kids about each of these categories with them. It makes them feel in control of their food choices and like they can sometimes still have treats. My four-year-old, William, especially loves playing this game and likes to frequently remind us which foods are which. This list will look different for every family but we list things like meat, bone broth, eggs, fruits, vegetables, milk, plain yogurt, nuts and whole grains and legumes in the “All the Time” category. The “Sometimes” category gets things like bread and pasta, store-bought cheese, cookies, pie, donuts (how else are we supposed to bribe them to sit quietly through church, haha!), fried foods and Hannah’s lemonade. The “Never” foods are reserved for stuff like cheetos and general junk food that has dyes, hydrogenated oils, high-fructose corn syrup or fake sugars. That’s not to say we would never, EVER eat them in our whole life, but we’re not going to keep them in the house.
7. No Thank-You Helpings: I do this with Hannah who doesn’t like oatmeal much. She fixes a “No Thank-You” sized serving of it in a snack sized bowl and then can fix herself something else she likes better after, like yogurt. If your kids really don’t like the foods you are making, let them have a small serving of it and make a sandwich or something afterwards. This only works if you only have healthy options to choose from though! But tasting real food repeatedly will usually get them to stop complaining with time and actually enjoy it. Jury is still out on Hannah though….
8. Get back on the horse: If you fall off the horse and have a day (or week or month) where you’ve just eaten terribly, don’t despair. Just get back up on that horse and start again! Even little changes in the foods we eat make a difference and over time it will start to feel more natural to everyone in the family. We are still learning and practicing and trying our best to eat healthy and it is getting easier with time. Let me know how your food struggles are going, send me an email! :)
