Yesterday, Penelope, at Penelope’s Romance Reviews, discussed the changes she’s made in her diet since her heart attack - at an awfully young age - last summer. Women are not spared heart disease, we just think we are and our heart disease often goes undiagnosed. Anyway, a couple days ago, Penelope wrote a great post about her lifestyle changes and yesterday, she talked about her new healthy eating habits and resulting weight loss and increased energy level - from the combination of diet and exercise. She is an amazing, courageous, determined woman.
So let’s have a conversation about food. I’m no slacker when it comes to healthy eating, but neither am I a perfectionist. Penelope asked the question, how do you get a kid who only likes chicken nuggets to eat right? That IS the question of the decade and there are no sure answers.
Eating habits are generational. Seriously. But, and this is a big but, healthy habits aside, kids don’t always like the taste of what we consider healthy foods nor are all those foods we consider healthy good for kids. There is a reason kids don’t like broccoli…it’s difficult for their bodies to digest and process.
I’m so very lucky. I come from a long line - on both sides - of good cooks. In my mother’s family, everything had to be made from scratch, our bread, our pastries, our jams and jellies. We had a huge garden and every year my mother canned and froze whatever we didn’t eat. In our own home, were not allowed to eat white bread, white rice, sugar-coated cereals, canned foods aside from tuna, or heavily salted foods - although we were free to eat whatever we wanted at our friends’ homes. It’s just that my father and mother believed the following: whole grains and homemade meals are healthy, processed foods are not. Oh, and we weren’t allowed pop (soda) unless we were on death’s door.
I raised my kids the same way, but because of the increasing popularity and availability of fast food, it was not easy. Plus I’m not a food Nazi. If my kids wanted French fries, they got French fries. If they wanted chocolate chip cookies, I baked the real thing. I also taught them how to cook and bake. All three kids are not only great cooks and bakers, they enjoy fresh foods.
I believe in this - all things in moderation. I know people who won’t allow their children to have anything sweet and their kids come to my house and devour every single cookie in the cookie jar. Bad idea. Forbidden fruit.
Little things sometimes make the difference:
Craving French fries? Try oven fries.
A baked potato is great with salsa on it. Even better with barbecue sauce!
Pick out your daily fruits (3) in the morning and put them in plain sight - easier to remember to eat them! Frozen fruits are better for you than canned - usually they are picked at the peak of freshness so they retain more of their nutrients and they contain less sugar. Same with frozen veggies. Canned vegetables are loaded with sodium.
Bake a batch of cookies and stick them in the freezer - it makes you think twice before grabbing a handful. Out of sight, out of mind.
Don’t sweat it if your kid doesn’t like vegetables with strong odors. Kids are built that way. I like to hide shredded veggies in dishes like mac and cheese or spaghetti. A shredded yam makes a great addition to Bolognese sauce and nobody ever even notices.
Don’t assume raw almond milk or raw cashew milk is a good substitute for cow’s milk. Raw almonds and raw cashews contain compounds (toxins) that kids cannot digest and that their little bodies cannot process. Two of my three kids are lactose intolerant, but they can eat some yogurt and cheese. My son is 6’3″ so I guess he got enough calcium.
There are two ingredients I avoid when buying any type of prepared food - partially hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup. I think these are two of the most unhealthy additions to food ever created. (I hope the corn gods don’t come after me because I dearly love fresh-picked sweet corn!)
Okay…lecture done. Way to go, Penelope!
