Our Kids Should Eat Healthy Too

Teaching Our Kids to Eat Healthier

Our kids are eating too much junk. And who can blame them? Junk food tastes great, and it is readily available everywhere.  (Don't have kids? You can still keep reading because this goes for most adults as well ?)
The good news is that healthy food can also tastes great, we just need to help our kids realize that.

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Here are simple ways to help your kids eat healthier.

1) Choose Whole Foods
Processed foods are the biggest problem with our modern diet. Packaged and refined food products are devitalized and filled with empty calories that quickly lead to weight gain. Unfortunately, processed foods make up a large portion of the diet of many children (and adults).
Offer your kids whole foods, rather than packaged ones. Whole foods are foods that are in their natural state. An apple. A piece of sprouted grain bread spread with natural peanut butter. A piece of hormone-free chicken. A bowl of beans. A bowl of healthy chili loaded with a lean meat and a ton of veggies.  You get the idea. Get creative with your healthy and delicious options. 

2) Add Color
Adding bright and colorful fruits and veggies to your child’s plate will get their diet on the fast track to health. Fresh fruits and veggies are filled with fiber, vitamins and minerals that are essential to good health.
Make it fun! Serve veggies with salad dressing as a dip. Cut fresh fruit in the colors of the rainbow and place them on a skewer. Serve a color themed meal – all green, all red or all orange. Use your imagination and you’ll come up with an endless number of ways to make fruits and veggies fun to eat.

3) Make Smart Substitutions
Kids love pizza and pasta and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and that’s not going to change any time soon. Rather than fight your kids on their favorites, try making smart substitutions to make their favorites more nutritious.

• Pizza: Up the nutritional content of your pizza by opting for wheat crust over white, loading veggies to the toppings and sticking with lean meat toppings. You could even make “Pizza Eggs” by adding marinara sauce, cheese and pepperoni to an omelet and avoid the crust altogether.
• Pasta: Make spaghetti with veggie noodles – see the recipe below!
• PB&J: A PB&J, made with white bread using sugar-filled peanut butter and corn syrup-filled jelly, is fairly void of any real nutritional value. Instead make a PB&J with sprouted grain bread, pure peanut butter (with only peanuts and sea salt), and fruit-only jelly. This will provide real wholesome fuel for your child’s day.

4) Ban Sugary Drinks
One of the best things that you can do for your child’s good health is to instill in them a love for water rather than sugary drinks. Soda pop, juices, smoothies, and blended coffee drinks are filled with a ton of empty calories that cause weight gain.
The easiest way to do this is to stock your house with lots of pure, filtered water. Don’t have fruit drinks or soda pop readily available so that they grow accustom to drinking only water.

While I presented these tips as improvements to be made to your child’s diets, these tips will also do wonders for your parenting diet. Practice these tips for 30 days and I guarantee you’ll look and feel better.

Parents all want good things for their children. Now how about doing something good for yourself as well? You are your child’s biggest role model on how to live, for better or worse.


Dedicated To Making Healthy Your Habit,

Mychael

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