Training Healthy Eaters

As a single mom when Kyndal and Dawson were little, my philosophy was that I was not going to fight about food. Primarily because of that, Dawson is a horrible eater! Thankfully, Kyndal had already received a foundation of pretty healthy eating before Dawson came along, so she still would eat pretty good. Dawson? Wow. Not so good. He is just now starting to eat a little better, but his inclination is always to go toward the junkier foods.

I vowed to do things differently with Eli and Brynne. I started them off with more well-balanced meals, not really giving them choices about what they did or did not eat. I encouraged them to eat healthy, and for the most part they have.

Of course, as they have gotten older and seen other types of foods, they have formed some opinions about what they "don't like". Because I still want them to get healthy foods in them, even if they don't want them, I have come up with some ways to accomplish that without a huge fight.
 

Call it something else. My kids have never wanted to eat eggs. And we like to have breakfast for dinner sometimes. So I had the idea the other night to make turkey bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits. Instead of asking them what they wanted on theirs, I just made them each half of one and put it on their plates with some fruit and extra pieces of turkey bacon. When Brynne asked what the biscuit was, I told her it was a "breakfast sandwich", not a "bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit". They gobbled them up and kept saying, "These are soooo good!" After they were COMPLETELY done eating, I said, "You just ate eggs." Huh??? "But weren't they good?" And the resounding answer was "Yes!"

Put it in and just don't tell them what it is. ~ A similar tactic is just putting the healthy stuff in and not drawing attention to it. Two nights ago we had quesadillas on whole wheat tortillas, containing refried beans, cheese, and avocado. They asked what they were. I said "quesadillas" (total truth). And they ate them. I never told them that inside those quesadillas were refried BEANS and AVOCADO. Had they known they were in there before they started eating, they probably would have refused it. Instead, all I heard was "Yum!"

Make it look different. A lot of times this involves putting it on rice or pasta. My kids will eat just about anything if it's on rice or pasta. Brynne might skip over the green veggies, but if I get them cut small enough, she eats them without even knowing it.

A big example of this was with the cabbage rolls I made last night.

These two dishes contain the EXACT same ingredients. Guess which one my kids ate?

I just switched things up a bit. I made brown rice their base food, added some ground turkey mixed with puree'd tomatoes instead of diced and small cuts of cabbage. They didn't even know that they were getting tomatoes and cabbage. And, they ate it right up. Rick and I had the original version which was delicious!

Add veggies to desserts. Jessica Seinfeld had a whole cookbook on this. I did some of her recipes, but they were really time consuming. Now, I just stick to muffins and cookies and put in some zucchini or carrots or some bananas, applesauce in place of oil, whole wheat flour instead of white, some ground flax. They love them and I feel good about them eating them in handfuls.

Put baby food veggies in your meals. What? Yeah! In spaghetti sauce, add a jar of squash. In soups, add a jar of carrots. If you can hide it, do it. Dawson actually asked me if I would do it. That way he gets veggies, but doesn't have to see them. Okay.

Food Groups plate. I recently blogged about these plates I purchased at Walmart in the baby and toddler section. They have seriously made dinner time a delight! The kids love to have ALL of their food group sections filled with the appropriate foods. If they are missing something, I give them options to fill it. It's been great.

Of course my main advice is to start when they are babies feeding them nothing but healthy foods and hold off as long as possible before letting your kids know there are other things out there. Don't ever give them white bread. Don't ever give them white rices and pastas. Don't ever give them anything to drink but water, milk, and the occasional juice. If this is what they know, this is what will make them happy.

But if that day comes and your kids know that there are some yummier (of course) less healthy options and they refuse your meals, maybe the tips above will help you. They help me daily.