Picky Eaters?? Get Creative!

For the past five years that I have been feeding the children I watch I have struggled to find a happy medium between what they will eat and what is healthiest for them. Here are some things I have learned:

1. Names have power. If I say Egg Salad Sandwich to a kid who thinks negatively of salad, he or she is not going to like it. They won't even give it a chance. If I say Smooshy Egg Sandwich to that same child, he or she will taste it with an open mind. A child may not like celery, but might eat 'ants on a log' (celery with peanut butter and raisins for the ants). It's all in the name.

2. Children want control. If I put a salad in front of a child for lunch and it had one thing in it that they don't know if they like (or definitely don't like) they may not eat any of it. If I put 10 diverse salad fixings out with serving spoons and an empty bowl in front of each child the bowls will empty faster then I can refill them and the kids will be full at the end of the meal. This also works for getting them to put veggies on 'Make Your Own Pizzas', eat veggie pita sandwiches, and devour fruits & granola toppings on their plain yogurt. There are so many things they have no control over in their lives, give them a little power and they will revel in it!

3. Appearance matters! Adults know that something may look gross but taste amazing. Children have not always had the experiences that make that believable yet. If at all possible, make it look good. I only buy whole wheat pancake and waffle mix and many of 'my kids' are used to the "regular stuff". Not a problem though. I make snake, sun and flower shapes out of the pancake batter and... drum roll please... my awesome Aunt Joy once gave us a Mickey Mouse waffle maker for Christmas. Problem solved. Supply them with plastic knives and Apple butter or strawberry jam and I can avoid syrup too (see the control factor above). 

4. The two bite rule (at least two bites of everything before they can have seconds of anything, but not mandatory, only if they want seconds) Combined with repetition- WORKS! The tricky part is outlasting them and not overdoing it. Make sure you don't serve that one food they don't like every day. Once or twice a week at the most if at all possible and pair it with food they LOVE so they will want seconds!

5. Shake things up. Kids like routine, but they also like craziness. Get a good book and find some good websites for food ideas. Turn them into kids that like to try new things and they will turn into open minded teens! My favorite book is Healthy Lunchboxes For Kids by Amanda Grant.

Some good websites are:

http://weelicious.com/

http://www.cookinglight.com/food/lunch-box-recipes-kids-00412000072333/

http://www.freshforkids.com.au/index.html

And of course Pinterest has an unlimited supply of great ideas!

Bring in new ideas, come up with crazy/fun names, give the kids control (either helping with the cooking or assembly or choices), make it look good, and let them try it & not like it as many times as they need to.

This is what I have found to work well. What tips/tricks/hints do you have??

FAIL

I received this book one hour ago and I already know I have failed, not only in feeding myself, but also my child (and this just in: all the other kids that spend any time here!) healthy foods. 

I thought I was doing good, but no. We are now all at risk for being fat, having cancer and cardiovascular disease, and we are depleted of micro-nutrients. 

We are also full of pesticides.

And that's all just from Aisle 1: Dairy

I guess it's a 'glass is half empty' kind of day

The Demon Child Story Is True?!?!

Growing up my mom would occasionally tell me a story about when I was about three years old and we were at the shore. She gave me some kind of fruit loops or something similar for breakfast and she swears that I literally grew horns and turned an evil shade of red. She claims that she had to chase me down the street and when she spanked me (for the first time ever) I laughed in her face.

I would always look properly horrified and pretend to believe her, but I seriously thought she should be ashamed of exaggerating like that.

Until it happened to Gwen

 

I didn't even know my child had that kind of nasty in her!! It all started very innocently. I thought I would try to make something new for lunch called a Polka Dot Sandwich. Polka Dot sandwiches are strawberry cream cheese on bread with slices of banana and raisins.

Like this

Well, it just so happens that strawberry cream cheese contains red food coloring. A few hours after lunch she back-talked me, an hour later she was nasty to one of the kids, and by bedtime it was all I could do not to beat her with a wooden spoon. The next day was pretty bad too and the day after that wasn't perfect.

As you can guess, I am pretty ashamed that I never believed my mom.

The thing is, I've always tried to feed Gwen a lot of all natural and organic foods. Not saying I'm perfect about it, but she had never had that amount of chemical food coloring all at once.

Several times since then we have had near misses with Kool-Aid, cake icing, and go-gurt. The thing is, I have had quite a few people look at me like I have grown a third eye and turned purple... reminds me of the look I used to give my mom.

So I'm wondering if a lot of people are as ignorant of the effects of food coloring as I was. According to this article on the Happy Mothering website chemical dyes in food have increased by 500% in the past 50 years!

This article on the CNN website reports about a link between dyes and increased hyperactivity.

I also have stumbled across this book. Rich Food Poor Food is a guide to making healthier choices at the grocery store. It teaches us what to look for and what ingredients should be sending up red flags. I'll be able to tell you more when my copy arrives in a couple of weeks.

If these dyes have this much effect on how we (and especially our children!) think and act...

WHY DON'T WE ALL KNOW MORE ABOUT IT??

Juicer!

Everyone remember a few months ago when the news came out with a report on arsenic in apple juice? Well, a couple weeks ago I turned on the news before my little monkeys got here one morning just in time to see two things. The first thing was a blizzard in Colorado... It just so happens that my brother had left for Colorado the day before. So of course (being the wonderful sister that I am) I texted him to see if he was alright. I forgot about the time difference. Turns out that when it is 7am in NJ it is REALLY early out there. Oops!


The second thing I saw on the news was a report on pesticides that have been banned in the US. Apparently some orange juice that has been imported is contaminated with this pesticide. It was being held in large holding tanks in Florida at the time of the report.  They said that they ARE going to allow this OJ into our grocery stores and they're not going to make them clean the holding tanks.


I am never watching the news again. EVER. A few days later we came home from Walmart with our very own Jack La Lanne's Power Juicer.

Isn't it pretty?? I absolutely love it. I checked it out beforehand and the only thing that was more highly recommended was a $450 Vita-Mix. I wasn't quite ready to make that kind of investment! I was a little concerned that I needed a little plastic tool to take it apart, but the blade fits so tightly into the filter screen that I would tear myself up if I used my fingers to take it apart. I think that's why it makes so much more juice per fruit then other juicers. It catches more of the juice... I guess. I've never had a juicer before, so I'm just making an educated guess.

We make one batch of juice every morning to last us the day and it is delicious!! Our favorites are:
Apple-Pear
Pineapple-Blueberry
Orange-Carrot
I think the various orange juices will be better once I start buying oranges that aren't so SOUR :(

I get about 14-16oz of juice from some fruit (example: three big apples or half of a small pineapple & an orange) and then delute it 1/2 and 1/2 (Trust me. It's WAY too strong otherwise). I'm storing it in the fridge in a plastic pitcher right now, but I've been told it stores better in glass so I'm going to see about getting something appropriate. All the kids really like helping make the juice and drinking it too.

What are your favorite juice recipes?

lazy post

I haven't the energy to say anything. The kids sucked my sickly self dry of all energy today... but I'll share this with you:

Yum!

Too Dangerous

One of my little boys went to Story Book Land last summer with his brother and parents. Story Book Land is INCREDIBLY little kid friendly. It's where I went on my Kindergarten field trip and I took Gwen when she was four & she went on every single ride. It's a really cute place.

Anyway, they took him on the little roller coaster and it totally traumatized him. They both came the next day wearing the T-shirts with the roller coaster on them (LOL) so I asked him how he liked it. The response was something like this:

"No. No ga roller coaster. Agbash hanfalwa domgawa. No, Miss Colleen. Too dangerous." And a really long hug.

Ever since then random things have been 'too dangerous' for him, from eating breakfast to going down one of those enclosed twisty playground slides. It has become one of the inside jokes around here, as many funny kid phrases tend to be.

But... I would really like to worn you about MY 'too dangerous' because I wouldn't want to see anyone else get hurt this way.

 

This object is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. As it stands right now the score is

Apple Wedger: 2

Colleen: 0

I probably should've gotten stitches this last time. Here, I thought it was really cute that it had a plastic cover for the sharp side... HA! That plastic cover is not just decorative. Let this be your warning.

Don't let this happen to you.

Peter Rabbit Organics

Has anyone tried these?? They look awesome. Completely organic, nut free from a nut free facility, AND they get good reviews about their taste.

  

I not so sure about the veggie/fruit blends... but I'm willing to give them a try.

  

Mommy's Favorite Things is doing a giveaway of these Peter Rabbit Organics Pouches. Cross your fingers for me :)