Eating Healthy - Tips and Ideas

I'm really motivated to eat healthier and make wiser choices that will benefit both my overall health and cycling/running abilities. However, I could really use some ideas... especially ones that may be kid friendly. I have two daughters, ages 10 and 6, and a 2-year-old little boy. The boy is a great eater, loves everything... the girls, much more picky! We do have a Blendtec that we use quite often for whole fruit smoothies, but I get stuck on things like breakfast, snack, and dinner ideas. Easy is always great, but we do love to cook, so we'll be grateful for any and all suggestions to make this transition smoother! Thank you!

You are a busy lady with 3 kids at home.

I cook everything from scratch, so no processed foods at all. If you take out the processing chemicals your food is more healthy. I also use my crock pot a lot, so that on busy days, this way I can still have a nice dinner at home. My 11 year old will eat any vegie so I'm lucky, but doesn't like some meats, unless it's in a hamburger. One trick I use is to make wheat pasta and grill vegetables, cut up small, throw in a few small meatballs and mix them in the pasta sauce. It is very filling and my daughter gets a very healthy plate of food. If you have food allergies, you just taylor it to your needs. Oh and lots of garlic! The nice thing about my pasta gulash is that it also keeps quite well for another meal the next day.

Breakfast can be an omelet rolled in a tortilla, or oatmeal (which is very filling). You can throw blueberries in the oatmeal.

Snacks are normally fruit or nuts or both. Yogurt Raisins.

Hope this helps, good luck.

Love the crock pot. I love to make a simple beef stew with a tomato base and depending on the day/situation, frozen or fresh veggies. You need one small can of tomato sauce, a couple of cups of beef broth (you can make your own or use a broth base), stew meat (I wait until it is on sale), and all the veggies you have currently. Put it in in the morning and then leave it and forget it. I love this option and it makes a ton. You can do just about anything with it. It's one of my favorite winter meals. I usually make homemade biscuits to go with. Not a whole lot else in there other than healthy stuff. I was a picky kid but I still loved this one. I mean, it's basically stew, so who wouldn't love it?

I make a LOT of stir frys. I buy whatever veggies sound good that are on sale, marinate some chicken with terriyaki usually and then stir fry it up! Make some boiled rice and you are good to go. I have also found that picky kids (if they eat rice) will think this isn't half bad and eat it but YMMV.

One thing that helped me when my kids were young, was to sit down and plan my meals weekly, before we went to the store. I still do this, and it takes the stress out of "what are we going to eat tonight?" I sat down with my Cooking Light magazine, or favorite cookbooks, and made my grocery list. And, I always have stuff on hand to make a simple dinner, like chicken thighs/breasts, ground turkey, etc. My kids were always interested in cooking, probably from years of coming to the store with us, and being involved in the planning. They both are good cooks as adults. The older one ate no veggies at all until he was well into his teen years and I never pushed it. His friends that were vegetarian exposed him to things and that did the trick. I just didn't obsess on any of it. He ate fruit, and I figured, well, he would live.
I try not to plan anything during the week, that takes more than 20-30 minutes to prepare and get to the table. I still use a lot of the Cooking Light recipes, because they have a "Fast to Prepare" section every month. I usually modify the recipes a bit, like take out the sugar, or use more spices.