Your kids eat THAT?--5 simple tips to get your kids eating REAL FOOD!

It's a question I'm asked pretty often.  Probably at least once a week, someone comments on a picture I've taken of our meal, or a post about what I plan on making for dinner, and asks me how I get my children to eat whatever the meal may be.

Let me get something straight.  My kids are NOT perfect.  They are wonderful, funny, smart, and fantastic, but they are kids!  They would rather eat a chicken nugget than a roasted chicken breast, a chocolate sundae than a cacao and kale smoothie, and a pile of fries than a pile of fermented carrots.  But then again, wouldn't you?  However, those options are few an far between in our house, part of the 80/20 (more often 90/10) rule of healthy eating that we try to implement.  80 or 90 percent of the time all that is offered, to my kids, my husband, and myself, is real food.  And guess what?  If that is all that is offered, even kids will eat it! 

My older daughters weren't exactly raised on real food.  My husband and I were just remembering  favorite "dish" he used to make the girls for breakfast, known as a Daddy Special. It consisted of Cheerios mixed into some low fat Yoplait yogurt, probably with a cartoon character on the packaging. 

After reading about this study, I became convinced that Cheerios aren't at all a health food:

"Four sets of rats were given special diets. One group received plain whole wheat, water, vitamins and minerals. The rats that received the whole wheat lived over a year on the diet. A second set was given water and white sugar. They lived for a month. Another was given nothing but water and the chemical nutrients. The rats that got nothing but water and vitamins lived for about eight weeks. The fourth group received Puffed Wheat, water and the same nutrient solution. The company’s own laboratory study showed that rats given vitamins, water and all the Puffed Wheat they wanted died in two weeks." ~Nourishing Our Children, Sandrine Love (To read more about the dangers of the extruded grains, look here.)

Yikes!  So much for that favorite "kid food"!  And the yogurt?  Thankfully is didn't contain artificial food dyes, but low fat milk and modified corn starch aren't exactly the best choices for growing young girls.

So how did we move our children away from the Standard American Diet (SAD) to a real food diet?  I'll lay out the basics in 5 easy steps!

1.  Go SLOOOOOOWWWW.
Especially if you have older kids, change is going to be a little bit tough at first.  Throwing out the entire contents of your fridge and starting fresh is going to be rough on their palates, temperament, and your wallet!  So make gradual changes of just one or two items a month.  And you can even start with things they're not likely to notice, like getting rid of the canola oil/fake butter/cooking spray and cooking your food in butter, coconut oil, lard, or bacon grease instead (olive oil changes composition when heated and is better used at room temp).  Then, switch out the conventional peanut butter with natural, organic, or almond or sunbutter.  Next month take away boxed cereal and try soaked oatmeal, or homemade granola, or another breakfast alternative.  If you make slow changes it gives your kids taste buds time to adjust, and before you know it they will be happily eating real food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

2.  Use the 80/20 Rule.
Once you have your family on a real food diet most of the time, make sure you give yourself and your kids a break once in a while!  It's hard to do anything perfectly 100% of the time, so instead aim for 80%, allowing for some rule-breaking here and there to maintain your sanity!  In our house, this looks like an occasional pizza night (not homemade, to give Mama a break!), eating a delicious dessert at Grandma's house on Sundays, or a lunch at our favorite "fast food" restaurant, Chick-Fil-A.  There are a few things I try not to let slip through the cracks, even on a "20%" day--artificial food dye, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners like aspartame are things I really don't want crossing my family's lips even sparingly.  It's also of course necessary to take allergies and food sensitivities into account, so on pizza night my daughter Adelaide (who is currently battling a parasite) enjoys some uncured organic hot dogs instead!


3.  Teach them why!
My older girls are 6 and 8, and they, like most kids their ages, have wonderfully curious minds.  So in the past year I've begun teaching them about food, healthy eating, and the unfortunate ways in which agriculture and food processing have taken a toll on our nation's health.  They know that most food found in packaging has nasty ingredients like GMO soy and corn.  They know about pesticides and why it's best when possible to choose organic produce, but they also know that there are some veggies we buy conventional because our budget matters too!  I've begun to teach them how to make good choices in restaurants, so even when fries are on the menu sometimes they choose carrot sticks or grapes instead (SOMETIMES).  It's a process, but I really don't want my kids' real food journey to end when they are grown and on their own, so it's very important to me to teach them why we choose to eat the way we do.  This year I hope to incorporate some kind of health/science into our homeschooling curriculum, and as I do I'll share it with you as well!

4.  Get them involved!
We've all heard this advice before, but I have to confess, it's really hard for me!  My husband, who is still doing a lot of learning himself in the kitchen, is much better at allowing our children to be by his side in the kitchen. For me, cooking dinner is a high-stress time (toddlers are waking up from naps, baby is often crying, Daddy is running late at work), so I prefer to go it alone with my radio on and my knife chopping quickly.  But I have seen and believe in the value of having your kids help in the kitchen.  So when it's feasible; I invite my kids into the kitchen to watch me work and help a little.  It's also great to allow them to help with the food shopping, so on a low-stress day when we have plenty of time, I have them look for items on the shelf, carry the list and read it to me, and help me determine what are the best deals!  These things definitely make life a little more chaotic, but allowing the kids to take ownership of their meals will broaden their minds, and hopefully their palates, to the world of real food.

5.  Insist on a "No Thank You" bite.
I learned this one years ago from friends of ours.  Often, if there is something new, different, and "weird" on their plates, kids will turn their noses up without even a bite!  Mine will say, "I don't like this!" to which I respond, "How could you possibly know that?  You've never tried it before!"  Now, I have looked at food and written it off without a taste before as well, but I'm trying hard to practice what I preach!  So when new foods are offered, my kids have to take a bite before they say "No thank you."  And if they don't like it, they don't have to finish, but nothing else will be offered.  More often than not, they love what they taste and eat it all up!  On the rare occasion when they don't like the main part of the meal, they will almost always eat enough so they aren't hungry.  Kids don't starve themselves, trust me.  Please remember that when you're staring down the barrel of a box of mac n' cheese.  Your child will eat that steak eventually, you don't have to offer an alternative!  (Of course, you have to keep your expectations reasonable, especially based on the age of your child.  I ask much more of my almost 9 year old than of my 2 year old, for example.) 

So, those are some (hopefully) helpful tips for how to get your children and family eating real food!  What tips do you have?  What trials have you faced as you try to get your family eating healthily?  Do you follow the 80/20 rule?  Tell me more in the comment section!