Salad Ideas

It's not likely your kids will eat spring mix or any of the bitter lettuces so try butterhead, romaine, or even iceburg to introduce them to lettuce.

Give your kids choices that will make the salad something they may want to eat. It's as simple as ranch or honey-mustard dressing. Or cheddar cheese or mozzarella cheese. Let your kids decide what goes on or into their salad.

Think outside the box when it comes to additions to your salad. Goldfish crackers, cooked pasta, or berries can make the salad more kid friendly and tastier to their palate.

Serve the salad first. Bring it out before you bring the meal out. Kids are at their hungriest then and if that's whats offered they may eat or even try a salad by having it there first.

Frozen Fruit

I can get my kids to eat more fruits when they are frozen then I can normally. During the summer we freeze almost all fruit with Popsicle sticks to make a healthy frozen treat. Buy seedless watermelon and cut into bite size pieces and place a stick in it and freeze. Quick, easy, and healthy with the added bonus of no added sugar or HFCS.

June is National Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month-How can we encourage our kids to eat more?

Here are a few ideas but I'm going to spend the month focusing on fruits and vegetables. Hopefully I can keep up on this blog a little better than I have been.

1. Eat fruits and vegetables yourself so they see you eating them.

2. If you have little ones start them early. If you start them on fruits and vegetables before they get set in their ways you'll have a lover.

3. Let them help you cook or prepare them. My kids love helping me get fruits and vegetables ready. They even like helping when we cook them.

4. Get creative with presenting produce. Some kids will eat more or even try something new if it's presented in a fun way. For example: make a silly face out of fruit or create a woodland scene with broccoli for trees.

5. Grow a garden with their help. Let them pick out a few fruits or vegetables they want to grow.

6. Let them pick out a fruit or vegetable at the store.

7. Make fruits and vegetables more accessible. Have them ready to eat and divide up into a serving size makes it more likely they will grab some and eat it.

8. Don't offer candy or other sweets as a reward for eating your fruit and vegetables.

9. Use fresh vegetable or fruit with a dip as an appetizer for your main course.

10. Use a farmer's market for some unique produce and again let the kids pick what they want to try.

11. Read children s literature with fruits and vegetables that includes fun characters and encourages healthy eating Like in Herb the vegetarian Dragon!

12. Never say you don't like a certain produce item or that someone else or your kid doesn't like it. Repeatably saying someone doesn't like it programs the brain into thinking they really don't like it.

Step Two Snacks III

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Again after coming home from a shopping trip I just getting produce ready for easy snacking and eating. I package all veggies and fruits in small snack size containers. I posted a few pictures above to demonstrate. Grapes we like to keep some fresh and some we place in the freezer for a fun frozen treat. Plus frozen grapes make great ice cubes in fun kids drinks. I also like frozen grapes in fruit water. I pre-cut melons and place them in a big ziploc bag so the kids can grab a melon slice whenever they have the desire to snack. The kids know that produce is an allowed snack at anytime, even minutes before dinner. All produce is washed and ready to snack on at any time right after coming into the house. Trust me having them done right after buying them makes it so you will have healthy snacks available to your family. If you wait a day or two you may never get around to getting the produce ready for snacking.

Step Two Snacks II

We eat pretzels instead of potato chips in our house. These are my favorite pretzels. The flavor is good and no one realizes its wheat or with less sugar than most pretzels. One serving is defined as 1 oz or about 8 pretzels. This one serving contains 110 calories, 1 gram fat, and 23 grams of carbs (1 g fiber and 3 g sugar). The kids love these pretzels. There is no high fructose corn syrup in these pretzels which is a must when it comes to snacks in our house.



This is a typical serving of pretzels if I just allow the kids or me to eat right out of the bag. AS you can see it is well over what the recommended serving size is. This is a 2 1/2 serving size. Which means it would have contained 275 calories easily.



This is what I do instead of just allowing the snacking straight out of the bag. I portion out a single serving when I bring the bag into the house. The family knows they can have one bag for a snack. Bags are returned to the empty bag box and I reuse the bags for future snacks. This teaches proper serving size and portion control.

Step Two Snacks

Seriously this is a huge down fall in our house at times. I keep plenty of fresh fruits and veggies that are ready to eat ready for anyone who wants a snack. Yes this means one day I spend about one hour washing and cutting and prepping the said goods for snacks. A fun and very popular snack in our house is frozen grapes. Just wash them up and throw them in a baggie in the freezer. Another snack that's popular is a little bag of salad. I bought little containers that are filled with homemade dressing that are easy to dump into the salad for a small snack. I'm talking like a 100 calorie snack that is quite popular. Buy big blocks of cheese and chop it into cubes and place tooth picks in the container with them. My kids love eating cheese for a snack if they have the little sticks. Another popular snack is fresh fruit or veggie kabobs. They place their favorite veggie or fruit on a kabob stick and they eat the whole thing. Also if you buy pretzels, crackers, chips, or whatever divide them right away into snack size bags. Have healthy snack easily available and ready for when you have the urge to snack.

I'll be spending the next few days showing our favorite snacks and portion sizes on the snacks.

Step One Part Three Bowls

Again if you move your family to smaller size bowls the odds of you over eating and consuming more calories then you intended is less.

The first picture here is of 3/4 cup (one serving size of Cascadian Farms Multi Grain Squares). It comes up to about 1/2 up the bowl. Add in your 1/2 cup of milk (skim in their label) and it looks like a full bowl of cereal at a count of 150 calories.



This second picture is of 3/4 cup (one serving size of the above) and it barely covers the bottom of a typical household bowl. Most people would double the amount easily just to make it look like a bowlful after milk. So your talking 300 calories in your big bowl of cereal.


I suggest you play around with your dishes to see what your dishes look like at the serving size for your food. When you downsize your dishes your lowering your chance of overeating just because we've learned to fill up our plate and eat everything on it.

Okay starting tomorrow I'm doing step two. Overhauling your family snacks. I'll share photos, tips, and ideas.

Examples in sizes

Meal on a typical sized dinner plate. One sandwich, one serving of carrots, and an apple. See how the plate still looks empty.



Same meal as above but on a salad plate. Notice how your meal looks bigger and like you have lots of food yet it's the same as above.



Two glasses with orange juice. Each glass contains 8 oz of juice which is what one serving size is with the juice I used as an example. The glass on the left looks only half full yet the glass on the right is almost to the top. Each serving of this orange juice is 110 calories so just by filling the cup on the left up you would be drinking at least 220 calories.

Step One Part Two Glasses

The next step would be to downsize your glasses. The big glasses are fine for water but filling them up with juice jumps you up to a more calories and sugar then you probably think. 6 oz. is the guideline for fruit juice. Most glasses that I see friends using are at least 12 oz or more. That's two serving sizes and your thinking I only had a glass of juice. If you have smaller glasses on hand for juice and other drinks besides water and you fill them up your family doesn't look at the barely filled glass and think "geez Mom is cutting back on the good stuff." Instead the smaller glass tricks the family into thinking they are still getting a full glass, which they are but an appropriate serving, and they are less likely to realize you are changing their eating habits.

I still keep big glasses on hand cause there is no limit to water. The kids know small glasses are for all drinks but water. It will take some time to get them into the habit of only using big glasses for water so don't give up but just give gentle warnings.

Step One Part One Dinner Plates

I use salad plates for our main dishes. Why? Because you trick your mind into thinking your eating the same amount of food yet your really not. For some reason in our society these days we feel the urge to load our plates up. If you plate is smaller to begin with you won't be over eating. Plus a healthy size sandwich looks small on a regular dinner plate but on a smaller plate you'll find it looks bigger.

Once you switch your plates over divide your plate into thirds. Some people do fourths and that works too but I find it easier with the smaller plates to do thirds. One third of the plate should be your protein source, one third your carb source, and the final third should be your vegetables. If you are using the fourths on a bigger plate you'd go one quarter protein source, one quarter carb source, and one half vegetables. I know there are lots of theories on this but I find this works well for our family.

This step is a very easy step and you may think why even bother with this since you just want tips on healthy eating. Well we as a society are over eating and larger plates are a big reason. And remember you want to slowly phase your family in to a more healthier eating program so they don't think they are being deprived or revolt against your goal. Most likely they won't even realize that your switching the size of your plates and you've made your first step towards a healthy eating family.

Welcome

I'm just in the setting up this blog stage so keep checking back. I'll try to get some first steps up later this weekend.

I'm doing this blog to show families how to eat healthier without overwhelming themselves. I've discovered that doing this in small steps makes it so you and your family doesn't revolt and stop the process. I buy and use minimal processed foods. I do make a lot of items from scratch to make them healthier for my family. We avoid high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients. I do try to buy organic and locally grown products as much as possible.