Healthy Eating Challenge 2011 Week 2

This weeks challenge is working on adding fruit to every meal.  Basically it means your adding fruit to your breakfast (pretty easy), lunch (still pretty easy), and dinner (I admit it's harder to do here).  I like to take fresh fruit and cut into bite size pieces and drizzle with some fresh lemon or lime juice and sometimes a little honey and serve it salad style at all three meals.  This is a much healthier option then adding cream cheese or whipping cream to a fruit salad.  Fruit kebabs are a hit no matter what meal they are served with.  Hopefully we can find another fun way to eat fruit at meals over the upcoming week.  Thanks for playing along with the challenge.  Feel free to comment and add your thoughts and ideas.

Thoughts on Week One of the Healthy Eating Challenge 2011

My kids stuck with fruits and vegetables they knew and liked.  I couldn't convince them to try something new.  But the nice thing is anytime they were hungry and wanted a snack they just went and grabbed fresh produce instead of chips, cereal, and other snack type items.  Hopefully next trip to the store will convince them to give something new a try.  They went with celery, carrots, and red bell peppers in the vegetable department and watermelon, bananas, and apples in the fruit department.  Please share what choices your kids made in the produce department.

Healthy Eating Challenge 2011 Week 1

This week's challenge will be introducing new produce to the family. Either take your kids along with you to the store and let them pick one fruit and one vegetable to try or you pick out a few fruits (if they are new to you the better) and vegetables. I've learned it takes at minimum twenty tries before someone can fully decide they don't like something. The only requirement is that my kids must take a bite that I can tell they actually took a bite. Just make sure you follow your rule too or the kids won't keep at it. Who knows you may find some new produce that you really like. I'll post at the end of the week the produce our kids picked out and what are reactions were to them.

Heathly Eating Challenge 2011

Each week I'll be posting a challenge to try to get your family eating much healthier by the end of 2011. To start with I'll have easy challenges and we will start working up to harder ones. The end result hopefully will be a healthier family by the end of 2011. Feel free to suggest this blog and/or challenge to others. Hopefully we will all learn something from each other and through this challenge.

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.