Healthy eating for families: one step at a time
As a parent, it can be a challenge to make sure your kids are eating well.
Being responsible for feeding yourself is one thing… but making nutritious meals for an entire family (sometimes with picky eaters) is another.
As a mom of four, I always thought I fed my family well. However, after learning that one of my children has a severe sensitivity to food dyes, I began to pay closer attention to what was in our food. And down the rabbit hole I went.
It was overwhelming at first when I realized that the typical American diet was not nutritious at all. Now, I didn’t just ditch Chick-fil-a, Starbucks, and goldfish overnight; instead, I decided to make small-yet-meaningful changes over time. After all, it takes time - in our case, years - to help our kids learn to like new foods and to steer them away from over-processed foods filled with added sugars. Here are a few tips, from my own personal experience, that may help if you too are searching for ways to help your family eat and live better:
When it comes to making a change, the earlier the better. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would’ve started making changes even earlier on. This may seem obvious… but I wish someone had shown me the way to healthy eating when my kids were babies. The easiest way to get your kids to eat a wide variety is to just feed them what you eat from the start. Your kids do not need a separate meal.
Find the right snack swaps. I really try to find organic snacks for my family; but honestly, they are not always a hit. Some organic snacks just don’t taste great. At the very least, I try to steer clear of seed oils and look for things that have minimal processing and ingredients I can actually read and pronounce. A few snacks that we do love in our house: cheese sticks, beef sticks, Solely fruit snacks, Pipcorn cheese balls, MadeGood granola minis and bars, and rice cakes.
Start making more meals at home - even if it’s just one or two times a week. It’s hard to avoid eating out when you have kids – sometimes it’s just too busy! But one of the first things we did when I began to focus on our nutrition was start making more meals at home. It wasn’t easy at first, and it didn’t happen overnight; but as I became more passionate about what my family was eating, and I took the time to plan and learn how to make meals that we enjoyed, cooking became so much easier. We do still eat out on occasion - usually on a busy night or a road trip - but now we see it as a treat. We try to pick places with healthy options (Cava is a family fav!) and we pay a lot more attention to what we order.
Keep healthy snacks around, and offer them regularly. I found one of the best ways to get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables is to make a fruit/veggie platter and leave it out for them! If it’s sitting out, chances are they will eventually try it. :)
In hindsight, I admit I sometimes feel ashamed at how little I knew about nutrition and about feeding my kids at times. It's so easy to feel guilty about what we have done wrong as parents. But I truly believe that we are all just doing our best to take care of our families! A friend once told me something that still comes to my mind often: “Do your best until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” Words to live by!
Allie Martin served as our business intern in Spring 2023. We’re thankful for her help and support!
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