Tips for getting Your Kids to Embrace Whole Foods

I found this great informational from Adventures of a Gluten Free Mom

(Love this lady, she has some really great tips and ideas that I have applied to my own kiddos)

Tip #1: Knowledge.

Take the time to not only know where your food is coming from, but to know what exactly is in your food.  This has been one of the biggest motivating factors for me to change the way my family eats  For an EXCELLENT book, I highly recommend getting a copy of The Unhealthy Truth: One Mother’s Shocking Investigation into the Dangers of America’s Food Supply– and What Every Family Can Do to Protect Itself by Robyn O’Brien and Rachel Kranz (seriously, get this book).  I can’t stress this enough, learn all about what can be legally labeled “food” and what the human body recognizes as “food.”  That alone should motivate you to take some action.

Tip #2: Preparation.

One trick I discovered that works wonders is to buy a mini-fridge for your kids and stock it full of healthy snacks.  I did this a couple of years ago when I got tired of my boys asking me for something to eat every 5 minutes.  I bought a mini fridge at Costco for about $135.00, brought it home and placed it in the playroom…a mini veggie bar, if you will!  Inside, I placed sandwich baggies full of grapes, berries, apple slices, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, cucumbers, carrot sticks, etc., plus containers of hummus, dill dip and almond butter for dipping.  I also stocked the fridge with containers of nuts and seeds, deli meat rollups, yogurt, cheese cubes, bottled water, plain milk (we are now dairy-free, so some things are no longer in our fridge {cheese} or we use dairy-free substitutes).

The key is to be prepared, and then you get to make the very subtle but incredibly smooth transition when one of your little ones approaches you with hunger pains: you tell them that they can have anything in the mini-fridge that they want.  Anytime.  No questions asked. {Incidentally, if you don’t want to spring on a mini-fridge you can designate one of your crisper drawers to the same purpose}.

It could be five minutes before dinner, doesn’t matter.  Would you trade a dinner fight over the broccoli on their plate for a baggie full of carrots eaten five minutes prior?  Of course you would.  Harmony and nutrition at the same time!  But the rule is, if they grab it from the fridge, they eat it (that’s the fight worth having).  But if the fridge is empty, you are stuck…so you have to BE PREPARED (geez, I sound like a Boy Scout!).

Variety in the mini-fridge is good at first, but you are going to have to be observant and take inventory each night (it’s a new daily chore, sorry…I know you don’t need another one).  Be aware of what they are eating the most of (remember, it’s all healthy stuff so it doesn’t matter).  Tilt your fridge stocking toward what is disappearing fastest for a couple of days and see what happens.  Either they will eat all of a certain thing or it will suddenly start to become moldy and untouched.  They go through phases.  My kids absolutely begged me for apples with almond butter for the better part of two weeks, then just when I stocked up on almond butter, they shifted to grapes and haven’t touched the almond butter in a month.  Of course, the day after I toss the almond butter, they will ask me for it.  It’s just part of the terrain, so stay nimble!

This is also a great time to join your local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.  We did this last year and for a mere $26 a week, a lovely box of local produce showed up on our doorstep every week.  My children quickly began to look forward to their weekly “veggie presents” and I found myself experimenting with vegetables that I simply would have passed at the market, this is how I fell in love with beets!

Tip #3: Patience

Be prepared for the first week or so to be absolutely miserable (depending on where you are on this journey)…sorry, no way to avoid it.

Once you decide that you want to improve your family’s diet, I wouldn’t recommend making a big announcement that “things are going to change around here,” you will just be asking for trouble. You buy the groceries, you prepare the food…just start doing it differently.  I can almost guarantee that your kids will not eat for at least two days, possibly four (or so it was with my obstinate 3 year old).  You will become convinced that you are a bad parent.  You will try every trick you know to get them to eat even one bite of Brussels sprouts/broccoli/tomato/{insert dreaded vegetable here}.

The only trick that works is hunger, so be patient (mom tip: hide in the closet with a glass of wine and allow your husband to deal with the nuclear fallout; he’ll most likely be happy to, especially if you give him a wink and hold up the glass of wine, LOL!).  Your kids are growing, their bodies will eventually send a signal to their brain that tells them to eat, and they will pick through the least offensive parts of their meal.

They will not starve, but they will try to make you feel guilty (go ahead, have a second glass of wine, mother guilt is a $&@!*).

Tip #4: Give Your Kids Control.

After a few days of misery, and just when your patience is about to run out, try something radical: give your kids control.  That’s right, you give control back to them.  They love to make choices, as we all know, and they love to feel in control of their own lives (if only they knew that we are Jedi Masters!).  One way to combine staying nimble with giving your kids control is to let them choose the foods that go into the mini-fridge.  Two great ways to accomplish this are to take them to a farmers’ market (mostly healthy stuff there) or help them plant a small garden plot in your yard or on your patio.  I know it sounds strange, but they will actually start waiting for the day their radishes are ready to harvest the same way they fidget for Christmas to arrive!

They make the choices, but you control the options.  If they want grapes instead of apples, so be it.  Carrots instead of cucumbers, no problem.

Tip #5: Don’t preach.

Trying to explain things to them really doesn’t work, at least it didn’t for me.  You can certainly discuss the benefits of healthy food IN GENERAL, but if you try to zero in on why YOUR KIDS should eat healthy (as opposed to their peers who are shoveling ungodly amounts of garbage into their mouths) it won’t work.

And please please please trust me when I tell you not to compare your kids to that “other kid.”  You know the “other kid” to which I refer.  The “other kid” who is part of your playgroup (or online community), the one who at the age of 3 is already making healthy food choices.  The “other kid” who shuns sugar, prefers kale, and can smell the artery-clogging poison of fried food from a mile away.

Let me tell you something, that “other kid” doesn’t exist.  My boys would pop Skittles until their brains were fried and slurp down Otter Pops until their tongues were permanently stained blue if I would let them.  And so would every kid.  Everywhere.  All the time.

My kids eat healthy food because healthy food is all we have in our home.  Bottom line, that’s the main trick.  Just get the bad food out of your home, understand what’s coming, prepare as best you can, and let Mother Nature take over.