Greetings from Florida! Can’t beat the sunshine and sand, but let me tell you, getting here was a bit nutty. I experienced my first rendezvous traveling solo with two toddlers, which can only be summed up by noting that I won’t be trying that again any time soon. (Doug is coming next week – after we head to Austin this weekend for a friend’s wedding – because he couldn’t take the full time off work!) If you follow along on Instagram, you may have seen that Josephine had a few diaper explosions and threw up multiple times. She’s feeling much better now, which of course is the most important thing, but woof. Rough day.
Onward and upward! We made it, it’s beautiful, and we’re excited to enjoy some time in the sunshine with our family.
I’ll be sharing lots more from our trip in the coming days, but today I’m taking a slight detour and partnering up with Liz from Hello Adams Family, Julia from Lemon Stripes, Kelly from Kelly In The City, Liz from Pure Joy Home, and Danielle from Danielle-Moss in our Mom Talk series!
On the docket? Healthy eating. AKA the fight that never ends between all parents and kids. (Riiiight?!)
This topic is a tricky one because food in general is tricky; it’s a hugely important and varied topic when it comes to parenting. Some people go all in on organic while others don’t. Some never allow sugar while others do. Some avoid meat at all costs and others want it at every dinner. My family and I sit somewhere in the middle. I’m going to lay out our honest truths about how we approach eating, but I need you to do me a favor, okay? Let’s all agree that this is a judgement free zone.
Shake on it? Alright, let’s go.
Our General Approach To Food
I feel like the best way to start this off is to lay out how we approach food, because food has such a huge tie to your mind frame, no? Our family is very much about balance and moderation.
At home, we like to eat home made meals that are vegetarian. This was something we just kind of evolved into — we actually used to eat a ton of vegan because Josephine had a severe dairy allergy, but since she’s outgrown that, we’ve started to introduce cheese/butter/yogurt a lot more. Some of our favorite meals are things like carrot spirals cooked to resemble spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce over it, or baked red peppers stuffed with quinoa and veggies in the middle. I’d say 60% of our meals fall into this category. However, a few nights a week, we’ll also throw on some salmon, chicken, or crispy bacon and salivate over how good it is. We’ll go on ice cream runs as a treat. We order carry out. (Our favorites are Indian and Mediterranean!)
We see food as a vital part of health, but it’s also something to be enjoyed. We drink lots of water, but we also love wine. I often go for a kale salad, but I love me a Big Mac. Get my drift? Balance!
Our Approach To Our KIDS Eating Food
Similar to our general approach with food, we believe in establishing balance for our kids. We try hard to keep good nutrition at the top of mind with all of their food choices — from snacks to dinners — but am I going to tell Grace and Jo that they can’t have that cupcake their grandma offering them? No frickin way.
My girls can be picky eaters, however our approach to their food has been pretty consistent from day one. They eat what we eat! Even when they were babies, we’d mush up the food and feed them so that they got used to the tastes and styles of our food.
Sometimes they won’t like the food we serve – anything with veggies is a common culprit here — but it’s always offered to them. I’ve found that each girl has their different tastes, so I try to incorporate them as much as possible. For example, Grace hates most greens but loves asparagus (How random right?!) and smoothies. So we have lots of asparagus as our sides for dinner, and I’ll make her smoothies in the morning and will put greens like kale in them. Or, Josephine loves beets (Another random one!), so when we’re out and I order salad I’ll order extra beets and she’ll have some alongside her meal.
They will occasionally surprise us and eat an entire meal of what we’ve cooked (RARE), and in those moments we do a little happy dance. However, a meal often goes completely awry (Josephine is at the age where she’ll literally throw her bowl across the room if she’s not into it), so I’ve learned to have balance here too. Our approach is to have them eat what we eat, but I’ll build in some items that I know they like and will tolerate from varied food groups.
For better or worse, snacks are another big part of our kids eating habits. Our girls tend to be grazers throughout the day, so I’ll always have things like raisins or fruit + veggie packets on me. Our approach with snacks is to prioritize items that are, of course, healthier choices. But again, if we’re out and about and Goldfish or a Graham Cracker is in the midst, well….can Mommy have a bite?
A Few Tips We’ve Learned
….For getting them to eat healthy foods even though they’ll sometimes do things like chuck their broccoli across the room. 😉 These may seem obvious, and they’re not 100% guaranteed to work every time because #Kids, but we’ve found them to be successful enough to keep at it!
Add Seasoning & Sauces
It’s amazing how far a little salt, pepper or even garlic powder can go! A recent favorite is the “Everything But The Bagel” seasoning from Trader Joes. It’s so good on things like avocado toast or even sprinkled into veggies like steamed broccoli.
Beyond seasoning, we love to use sauces. They just make things so much better! Noodles almost always have red sauce over them. We love the Trader Joe’s Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce for simmering in chicken. My mom’s famous salmon sauce recipe gets Grace and Jo to eat salmon every time — just simmer mix equal parts honey, butter, and Grey Poupon mustard to make the sauce and drizzle it over your protein – I promise it’s AMAZING.
When Cooking Veggies, Add A Little Coconut Oil
This little tip was a huge game changer for us. When Grace was young, she would NOT eat steamed carrots. Our solve was to add a spoonful of coconut oil (and some seasoning!) and – voila! – she would eat the entire plate. Coconut oil has since become a favorite way to add a little sweetness to foods that need extra help with the girls, especially with things like veggies!
(Try Your Best To) Stick With Set Mealtimes
This is kind of tough sometimes because, like I noted above, my girls love to snack and have the tendency to be grazers throughout the day. But I’ve definitely noticed that if we give too many snacks, they don’t eat enough at our actual meal times. Which is an issue because that’s when the real meat and potatoes (pun intended!) of their good, healthy food comes into play.
The solve for us has been to have set meal and snack times. Sure, we’ll give in an allow for things like cereal bars in the car, but in general we try to keep to their schedule. Fair warning: They sometimes turn into gremlins about an hour before meal time, but hey, they’ll eat more when we sit down so gremlins welcomed.
Get Creative!
Every kid is different, and the most important thing is that they’re getting proper nutrition, so don’t be afraid to get creative with the things they do like! By this I mean, make “Ants on a log” out of things like bananas, peanut butter and raisons. Or cut their sandwiches into little shapes. Seems simple but it does make them excited to see during meal time.
Sweets Aren’t The Best. But They’re Not, Like, The Devil.
Okay so I may or may not be writing this one more for myself than anything. 😉 I just feel like as parents we have so much guilt and pressure to always be the ideal parents, who give our kids 100% organic food all the time, and sometimes that’s just not attainable.
We of course all want our kids to get healthy, nutritious foods every day! But kids love and are also hugely motivated by things like candy and sweets, and I’ll be honest, I don’t see giving into those occasionally as a bad thing. I actually thing allowing them to have sweets in moderation helps them to learn balanced eating.
So there you have it. I don’t love for my kids to have a ton of sweets. But will I allow them a cookie after a particularly well behaved meal, or a piece of candy because it’s Saturday and Saturdays are for fun? Yes. Yes I will. And I’ll usually ask for a bite while I’m at it.
Healthy Recipes For Kids + Favorite Food Pairings
Alright, here is where the good stuff is! Below are some very trail-of-thought healthy recipes for kids and general food items that our girls love. Some are food combinations, others are more straight forward. But I promise all are attainable. I am no chef, my friends, and if a meal takes more than 10 minutes I’m usually O-U-T, so you can bet all the below are pretty easy, too!
- Apples & Cinnamon Oatmeal (Both of our girls LOVE oatmeal!)
- Smoothies. A favorite combination of ours is Strawberries + Blueberries + Mangoes + Kale + Chia or Flax Seeds + Greek Yogurt + Coconut Milk. Throw in just a bit of bee pollen for some added health benefits!
- Bananas with peanut butter over top. Add on raisins if you’re feeling adventurous. (We will do this and call them “ants on a log.” This also works well with celery!)
- Steamed carrots. Toss these in a little coconut oil when they’re cooked so they have a bit of sweetness.
- Scrambled eggs with salsa and cheese added in
- Hard boiled eggs. We’ll often put one in Grace’s lunch.
- Pancakes with flax or chia seeds
- Cooked beets with olive oil drizzled over.
- Soups! I always forget about soups for kids but our girls love them. Favorites include Chicken Noodle and Lentil soup.
- Red pepper slices dipped in hummus.
- Hummus with brown rice mixed in (A great way to get added substance in there if your kid likes hummus!)
- Ezekiel bread sandwiches (This is the only bread we buy! Such an easy swap for standard bread and Ezekiel bread has so much goodness in it.)
- Greek yogurt with berries and light honey drizzled over the top
- Sliced apples. Dip them in peanut butter or almond butter.
- Cucumbers, sliced, with light cream cheese spread over the top
- Sliced watermelon mixed with light feta
- Cheeseburgers with ketchup (Er…okay, this may not be “healthy”, BUT it’s protein and her favorite food so I’m including it. Also, Grace will literally dip her burger like a french fry, ha!)
- Guacamole, on its own or over toasted bread
- Dried Mango slices. (Such a great snack for when we’re on the go)
- Frozen grapes (Cut them in half before serving, though!)
- Frozen peas
- Black beans mixed with rice and hummus
- Salmon is a favorite! I noted this above, but my pro tip here is to my mom’s famous salmon sauce recipe. Just simmer mix equal parts honey, butter, and Grey Poupon mustard to make the sauce and drizzle it over your protein – I promise it’s AMAZING.
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How do you approach healthy eating with kids? Do you have any healthy recipes for kids that you recommend? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
Be sure to swing by the below blogs to read and learn from them, too!
Lemon Stripes
Hello Adams Family
Pure Joy Home
Kelly In The City
Danielle Moss
PS – Thoughts About Screen Time (And How I Manage It) + My Perspective on Kids & Sleep Training
