Our kids are eating too much junk. And who can blame them? Junk food tastes great.
The good news is that healthy food also tastes great. 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.
Offer your kids whole foods, rather than packaged ones. Whole foods are foods that are in their natural state. An apple. A piece of sourdough bread spread with natural sunflower butter and cinnamon. A piece of hormone-free chicken. A bowl of beans. Slice of organic cheese. You get the idea. You can see some of my recommended recipes here: Recipes
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 guacamole or apple cider vinegar 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 gluten free crust or preferably cauliflower crust (free of wheat) over white flour, adding 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 gluten free bread, sourdough bread or sprouted grain bread, pure peanut butter (with only peanuts and sea salt), other nut butters (walnut, pecan) or sunflower butter and raw honey or 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 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 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.
Treat yourself right by calling or emailing today to get started on a nutrition or exercise program that will change your life for the best.
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