In homes across the country the epidemic of over scheduled families continues to be a problem. It’s hard to fit in family meal time and a struggle to find something the entire family will eat. Then add the fact you are trying to get them to eat healthy nutritious food. If you are one of the few parents that exposed your kids to all the “good for you” nutritious foods from the beginning, bravo to you and I envy you. I would never recommend dwelling on mistakes but I bravely admit I would love a do-over on that. I know some kids simply are picky no matter what but exposure to nutritious foods when they first start eating increase the chances they will like it. It is so hard to un-do bad eating habits. But as the wonderful Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” I have been able to do better for myself but it’s the kids that are the challenge.
When my children were small and developing their eating habits I could have done better at offering them a better variety of healthy foods. I was young and could eat anything without a care or worry. I had deeply rooted food preferences that I was inadvertently passing on to my children. I had very adorable but very busy and energetic twins boys that kept me on my toes and I tried to keep things simple in the midst of trying to juggle it all. Between working, going to college and “momming” (the term I use that encompasses all the Mom duties) which includes trying to plan healthy meals. To be honest something had to give, so we ate quick and easy food.
I give myself a pat on the back for keeping them away from soda and fast food restaurants as they were growing up. Even so, by the time I realized I needed to do better they were already hooked on the typical child diet; chicken nuggets, pizza, macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, lunch meat sandwiches, cereal, granola bars etc. As far as vegetables they barely ate any even though I would offer them. The exceptions were green beans, corn, mashed potatoes. Eventually one of the boys started liking broccoli! They would eat apples and bananas from the fruit category. Just like many of you, time was valuable and you didn’t want to waste it fighting with the kids to eat their vegetables. Yes, you try but to gain some quality time at the dinner table concessions were made and food they liked wins out.
When they were young I tried all the tricks to get healthy food into them and some of the tricks worked. I was proud of the little victories like switching to whole grain wheat bread instead of white. Yes, I thought, a win in the Mom column! Carrots dipped in ranch dressing! Yes, another win. It gave me motivation to continue to introduce better food in their diet. My approach was to add the veggies even if they had to dip them in dressing. I knew too many condiments were not actually good for them but I was focused on getting some real food into their bodies.
This was the early 2000’s that my kids were toddlers. Slowly information started to become more readily available about the reality behind what is in our food and how it is produced. Most of the foods we thought were good for us were actually not. It puts a scare in you as a parent and then you get overwhelmed because every food ingredient list you look at is as bad as the next. At that time there were not a lot of organic or additive free options unless you lived near a whole foods store. I did not. It created frustration and confusion on what to feed my children. Additionally and unexpectedly on April 2, 2006 my sister passed away. She was only 40 years old! The cause was a complete blockage resulting in a major coronary event. It was devastating to our family. Great loss breaks you open and turns you on your axis. A life changing event such as the death of a loved one can trigger major lifestyle changes. It did for me. It made me re-evaluate everything in my life including food choices for my family.
I was able to overhaul my diet over the years but the kids were more challenging. I realized any good change I made mattered. I may not be able to get them to eat as healthy as me but anything I could improve was worth it. I took myself straight to the doctor to have all my blood work checked. I needed to make sure my heart wasn’t a ticking time bomb too. Luckily things checked out good for me. Over the years I have devoured books and any information available about nutrition and health. If you wish to start improving the foods you eat the books EAT THIS NOT THAT, COOK THIS NOT THAT and DRINK THIS NOT THAT by David Zinczenko & Matt Goulding could be very helpful to you. They helped me in the beginning of my journey. They show you healthier alternatives to some of the most common things you currently eat and drink. When you begin a self improvement journey remember that implementing small changes that you can sustain seem to work best. If you change one bad eating habit at a time, you can make it stick! If you try to change everything all at once it’s such a shock to your system that it sets you up for failure. Make one change and keep it up. After it is a habit then add another.
Fast forward to now and my twins are 19 and I have 4 step children. The ages of all the children range from 12 to 23. Three live with us full time and two live with us part time and one is out on her own. Although the grown ones take care of a lot of their own meals recently, it was not always like that so I wanted to share what worked for us. As you can imagine meal time can be an impossible puzzle to navigate, having something everyone will eat and it’s healthy. I found concessions and creativity are a must. I had to concede that the children are not going to instantly like the healthy foods that I offer them. Making small changes was the only way. Another concession is the entire meal doesn’t have to be healthy…yet. It will get to that point eventually. Start by focusing on the healthy foods they do like and be a good example with your own diet which they could start they emulate as they grow up. My husband and I eat very healthy. The kids are all on different areas of the spectrum, most being not very healthy. So how do we simplify mealtime so that we can eat healthy yet still provide something the rest of the family will also eat? The answer is not what you want to hear. There really is no way to provide both when you have many family members that don’t eat very healthy foods yet. The way we simplify meal-time includes both types of food. As much as possible is healthy and some isn’t quite there yet. For now it takes some meal planning and creativity.
5 WAYS TO SIMPLIFY MEALTIME
1-Use the the most healthy alternatives whenever possible. Until you can convert your picky eaters to nutritious food eaters, some foods can be made somewhat healthier by switching to a cleaner version of it. Stay away from saturated fats, choose foods without dyes, additives & preservatives as much as possible and lean heavily toward any plant based food that they like.
A Few Examples:
Bread: Switch to whole grain breads and organic if possible.
Applesauce: Go with an organic or at least the unsweetened version. Make sure there is no high fructose corn syrup, food dyes or additives. They are available at most major grocery chains.
Real Fruit: Quit buying prepackaged fruit cups or cans of fruit full of high fructose corn syrup. If no added sugars or high fructose then go for it. Otherwise, get real fruit. Find out which fruits they like and have them available. If pealing/slicing/dicing gets them to eat it, it may be worth the extra effort on your part. You can also make smoothies which is great because you can hide other fruits or veggies in there that they usually do not eat without them even knowing.
Yogurt: Switch to organic yogurt that does not have added sugars. There are so many organic and natural yogurts available now so make the switch and get them use to a cleaner version. If lack of a the sweet taste is a problem when switching, drizzle some real honey and top with real fruit or nuts.
Real Whole Grain Rolled Oats. Switch from the sugar overloaded instant oatmeal packets to real whole grain oats. The kind in the round cardboard container. It’s worth a few extra minutes to fix real oatmeal. Add in some cinnamon, honey or real maple syrup and fruit and just like that it is a super healthy version of something they already eat.
After finding out what fruits and or vegetables they already like play them like a broken record for a while. Or as much as you can without burning them out on it. Then start introducing other fruits and vegetables that you know are similar in taste or texture and they will be more likely to take the leap and try them.
Hide other vegetables in with ones they like. One example of how this worked for me was how I slowly started adding spinach to my boys iceberg lettuce salads. Of course I had to tell them, “it’s just darker green lettuce ”. Creatively explaining or fibbing about new healthy food is acceptable in my opinion. If I would have said it’s spinach they would immediately say I don’t like it and pick it out. Eventually a third or more of their salad was spinach leaves. To me this was a success and I was happy they were getting more nutrient rich food. The attempt would have failed if I simply gave them a bowl of spinach salad.
2–Create meals that are two variations from the same ingredients. When we make the kids chicken & cheese quesadillas my husband and I will opt for high fiber wheat tortillas to make spicy chicken wraps. A lot of the ingredients are the same (chicken, cheese, lettuce, onions, cilantro, salsa, sriracha) we forego the cheese in our wraps and the kids quesadillas don’t include the lettuce. Very similar meals with a slight variation.
Another example is taco night. Same as above basically. The kids have tacos and we can have taco salad instead. We can put ours on a bed of lettuce and include tons of vegetables. Again a lot of the ingredients are similar and it doesn’t take much to tweak it to please both the kids and adults.
When we grill burgers for the kids we make spicy black been burgers on whole grain or multi-grain organic bread for us. The kids do net yet accept the texture of seeds and nuts in the bread so they still use whole wheat buns. We can all have the same array of toppings (lettuce, tomatoes onions, pickles, mustard etc.) We are eating quite different but meal prep is still similar enough that is just like one meal.
3–Meal Planning. Before grocery shopping take the extra time to plan out the meals and snacks and make a detailed list according to that plan. It will simplify the entire process saving you time and money.
4–Meal Prepping. Make meals in advance. It’s a great alternative to fast food. You can use the real and fresh food ingredients that you planned and prepared yourself and know exactly what is in them. Making meals in advance enables you to simplify the dinner time process of the busy week. If my husband and I are just having salads for dinner and the children are not going for it we can pull out something I made in advance for the kids and just heat it up. Then we can focus on the family time spent at the dinner table catching up on each others days, connecting and laughing which is my favorite part of mealtime. It’s much better than debating about what to make and having to fix multiple meals to please everyone. There is no time for that! Am I right?
5–Leftovers. Whether your are cooking dinner or meal prepping for the week, make a bunch! Leftovers are a lifesaver when a picky eater starts to reject something your are making. The choice at our house is eat what what we have made or you may heat up some left overs yourself. It’s a really good part of the plan and sometimes a must for those nights that something unexpected comes up and there’s no time to cook. Pull out the leftovers!
If you follow those 5 tips mealtime can become more simplified! You will gain back some precious time. If you only have a few hours available in your evening like most of us, you do not want to spend it fussing over what to fix that everyone will eat. The key is planning ahead, adding in as much healthy options as possibly for the kids and then slowly build on those, plan your grocery list, prep some meals in advance every week (or as much as possible), create meals that are two versions with the same ingredients and always make a lot so you can have left overs. Mealtime is simplified!
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Make this journey fun and always… Be True to Yourself!
Jen to the Zen
~Jennifer Smith