Eat Your Fruits & Veggies!
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I will admit that there was a time that I loathed fruits and veggies. I would eat the bare minimum and would scoff at trying something new. When I started my weight loss journey last year, I had to throw that attitude out the window. I had to try new things whether I liked it or not. Or else my meals would have been so boring.
Since I was trying new things, that meant the kids were trying new things. I am hoping that by showing a good example that they won’t scoff at new foods and actually enjoy their fruits and veggies.
Don’t get me wrong. There are some things that they will turn their noses up at. I get it. They are kids. But I do have some tips that I use to help them eat healthy.
Tips for Getting Kids to Eat Healthy
1. Build a healthy plate. I love to use a divided plate for our meals. This helps a lot with portion control. I use the bigger slot for our proteins, the medium space for the fruits and veggies, and the smaller one for starches or a yummy treat. Here is what a typical lunch plate looks like in our house.
2. Keep fresh fruit and veggies in the house! I always have bananas and grapes on hand. Recently, we added carrots as part of our lunch time routine to replace pretzels or crackers.
3. Give them what they like. Ethan will often ask for yogurt with his lunch. I am not going to turn that down! When I picked up the latest edition of Weis Healthy Bites {more on that below}, I was happy to see they had an article about making your own yogurt parfaits. This will be a great way to add even more fruit to one of his favorites snacks.
4. Let them pick it out. When I take the boys shopping with me, I let them each pick out a fruit. Ben will always go for the bananas, while Ethan prefers grapes. I’ll then suggest another fruit for them to add to the cart. We have recently been adding watermelon to our fresh fruit selections at home.
5. Try something new. Our local Weis supermarket has a great magazine {for FREE!} called Healthy Bites. I found some great recipes in there, like Skinny Pizza {yes please!} and a great new brunch recipe. The magazine also has some great coupons to use for the recipes!
6. Make sure they get their vitamins! Because the boys weren’t eating a ton of fruits and veggies, I did worry that they were lacking. I made sure that a multivitamin became part of our routine and even made sure I was taking them as well. Weis Pharmacies offer FREE multivitamins with fluoride for children up to seven years of age. All you have to do is present your prescription to the pharmacist.
This was difficult, with a gluten-free diet, but I started by putting snacks in trays. I used a Christmas tree silicon candy mold, filling it with apple slices, celery sticks and peanut butter – man, did they love that! Now they eat snacks all the time.
My youngest loves fruits. We’re working on veggies but at least he has those fruits in the meantime. 🙂
Great ideas! I love that Weis has the booklet to help out, what an asset! We have one or two veggies and fruits that the boys eat, so while I sometimes groan about them not eating many things we at least get a few good foods in them!