Kids & healthy eating

Everyone keeps asking me how I've gotten my kids to eat "clean" with us. My kids have always been relatively healthy eaters. They do love their Kraft mac'n'cheese, they love a cookie, they will beg for ice cream.  But when it comes to lunch/dinner? They know the rules. They can have cheese and crackers everyday, but they get the serving size of whole wheat crackers (4 crackers) and if they are still hungry, we start supplementing with healthy stuff - fruits and veggies!





This was lunch on Friday: 4 crackers, some cheese, a handful of grape tomatoes, half a hard boiled egg and some turkey that my husband smoked.















If you follow along with the blog, you know that I take one afternoon every 1-2 weeks and prep a TON of food - portion out bags of nuts, cut carrots, celery and peppers, hardboil eggs, pack snack bags to make life easy for the husband. My kids LOVE this day. And I don't mind it either. They ask for food all day long - and I give it to them, because they are eating carrots, nuts and other veggies!

My son (2 years old) will wander over when I'm prepping dinner and eat whole veggies. This was two consecutive days - one, a whole cucumber and the other he ate a tomato like it was an apple!

My daughter has been on a roll too - this night, I gave her soup and a HUGE salad. She finished every single bite of that salad! I find that the more I give her salad, the more she is liking it - and even asking for MORE if she isn't full when her dinner is gone. 

We've had our moments. I made homemade macaroni and cheese for my son's birthday party. As I was making it, my daughter came over and asked when she can have "the boxed mac'n'cheese" again. I told her we were eating healthy now, and that certainly wasn't healthy. She said "ok, when are we DONE eating healthy so I can have that kind again???"  

We slowly weaned them from the Quaker oatmeal packets they've been eating (2-3 a morning some days!) and have moved them to old fashioned rolled oats with berries or maple syrup. That was our biggest challenge so far and it's been a dream!

So they aren't 100% on board, but they are doing really well with it. I love finding new things for my family to try together (pummelo! Try pummelo with your family sometime! it's a grapefruit that feeds 4-5 people!)

What's one thing you've fed your kids that they LOVED that shocked you??