My family is kind of driving me nuts right now. I’ve got my meat eaters, and my flexitarian who eat less and less meat. My husband likes his meat and wheat. My little guy refuses to eat vegetables. How the heck am I supposed to make everyone happy while providing balanced meals for everyone?
I start with not worrying that each meal be a complete balance. After all, we have a whole day to get whole nutrition. That being said……..I can’t fall too far behind and load them up on nutrition as they are on their way to bed. Can you imagine how funny that would be? I provide most of the food for my family so I usually have 3-5 chances to provide them with the nutrition they need.
5 Tips To Help Provide Balanced Nutrition for Your Family
1. Plan meals: When you look at the day as a whole, you are better able to make adjustments for different tastes. I only prepare one dinner, but there is certainly lots of ways to provide variety throughout the day. I put several vegetables on the table and have a variety of snacks available. Planning also helps me from throwing my hands up in the air and running out to get pizza.
You can get this free meal planning printable to help.
2. Use snack time to get extra nutrition into your kids. Smoothies are a great way to hide vegetables. Fruit and vegetables with dips fun for kids and a great way to get added nutrition into them. I like cheese sticks and yogurt when I need extra protein.
3. Use divided plates and lunch containers. These help remind you t to include a variety of foods at these meals. Make sure there are different colors in each section and you are off to a great start.
4. Have the kids shop with you or help with the meal planning. What is it that they want to eat? If you include some of their healthy favorites, they are more likely to be accepting of the foods that you want them to eat. Compromise works for us most of the time.
5. Make sure the snack food is at eye level or easy for them to grab. Once you dump your processed junk food, the kids are still going to want their snacks. Make sure to healthy foods prepared so that they can grab and go. My kids go through cucumbers like crazy when I have them chopped and stored in a container right at the front of the refrigerator. Raisins are another food they now think of as junk food. My teenager eats them like he used to eat chips.
What do you do to make sure your family members are all getting balanced nutrition? Do you have to cook for both vegetarians and carnivores in your family? How are you teaching your kids about balanced diets?
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These are all great tips. I leave all the kids' snacks on the counter or on a shelf in the fridge at their level. I also prep things like carrot and celery sticks every couple of days. That way they are more likely to grab them.
This is a great post. I'm going to share it on a lot of my health and food group boards.
Now that my kids are older (youngest is 20 – yikes!), it's interesting to look back and see changes in their eating. The oldest was always an omnivore and not a particularly healthy eater. Now that he is older I see him moving toward healthier eating. Also, he is living in a house with a friend and has mentioned all of the unhealthy food the friend cooks – and is somewhat appalled by it. Youngest was a very picky eater for many years, but has been health conscious about food since his early teens. His eating repertoire has really expanded in the last few years. Last night he had 1 1/2 great big grilled vegetable sandwiches and loved them! So I guess my rambling point is, the good habits you are teaching now with your younger children will pay off as they get older.
Meal planning is always difficult in our house. It is definitely the most stressful thing of my day…..preparing a meal. The problem is running out of types of different recipes and at the same time, it is a meal that will be eaten. Been trying to get the kids more into cooking so they can start preparing meals for me. I like the smoothie idea.
I love your idea of using snacks to get in extra nutrition. I usually make a smoothie for breakfast each day – the children have more. Even though it was green, my 8-year old asked for some of my smoothie along with his breakfast – sure. So the 10-year old got in on it too, then the 6-year old. They exclaimed their surprise that they couldn't even taste the spinach and thought it was really good. So when the 8-year old asked for more (it was gone), I told him it would make a good afternoon snack. He was happy, and I landed on your idea – unknowingly.
My grown sons have really proven that in eventually pays off. All three of them, for various reasons, have chose to be more aware of their diets, and are seeking to make healthier choices. At times I really wondered…still working on the teenagers… 🙂
Your tips are great Christina. I'm going to get some veggies chopped up and put on their level in the fridge – love that one too!