Healthy eating doesn’t have to be expensive, the truth is it can actually save you money! There are lots of ways to enjoy the benefits of healthy foods and still stick to a budget. Here are some ideas to keep your costs down while making healthy food choices:

1. Do your grocery shopping once a week. Every time we go to the store for just one or two items we usually end up walking out with a cart full! By going only once a week, you eliminate the possibility of spending more money!

2. Plan Plan Plan! Come up with some meal and snack ideas for the week. Make a shopping list based on those meals and then stick to the list! Don’t be tempted by impulse items once you are in the store. Having a list and buying just the items on it will help a lot.

3. Make meatless meals one day a week. On those days you can easily get your protein from beans, nuts, seeds and grains.

4. Make meals at home. Cooking at home can be much healthier and cheaper than eating out. You are in control of the ingredients (like salt and sugar amounts) and you’ll probably end up with leftovers for another meal! Getting the whole family involved with preparing a meal whenever possible is also a great way to spend some time together!

5. Try growing a garden. You don’t necessarily need a big garden space you could start with some planter boxes or even just a small herb box in a windowsill! Your city might have a community garden that you can take part in. Gardening is a really great experience for kids!

6. Famer’s Markets can be a great place to get your Rainbow of produce! You are supporting your local farmers and getting fresh produce that hasn’t had to travel for miles and miles. I’ve heard that if you go to the market towards the end of their day you can sometimes get an even better price because they are very interested in getting rid of their stock…just something to consider!

7. Freeze big quantities of seasonal produce.  In the summer months we buy huge flats of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries then we freeze them and use them in smoothies and other recipes during the winter months. It’s much cheaper to buy produce in season!

8.  Buy Bulk! When shopping for items like flour, spices, pasta and rice can be less expensive if you purchase them from the bulk bins! It’s also better for the environment due to less packaging so it’s a win-win situation.

9. And finally…Never shop on an empty stomach!

Happy Healthy Eating!

We all have busy lives these days and sometimes cooking is just one more thing to get through in the day so the thought of bringing kids into the kitchen to “help” may not seem appealing on first glance.  Cooking with little ones tends to take a little longer and be a little messier so it’s not necessarily practical to have their “help” every day.  However when you aren’t in the middle of a hectic day I would encourage you to invite your kids into the kitchen, no matter their age, I think you’ll find that cooking can be one of the most bonding things you do together!

When my daughter was a baby I’d let her play with food, she would sit in her high chair and have a great time exploring an avocado.  Feeling the bumpy texture of the skin with her little fingers, bringing it to her nose to smell it, smearing it around her tray like a painting, it usually ended up all over her face and in her hair!  As much as possible we encouraged her to feed herself so that she would get to explore and get to know her food…is was a messy fun filled experience!

As a toddler I’d give her “special jobs” like washing vegetables in the sink, she’d pretend they were swimming in a pool, or sometimes she would dry the lettuce for our salad in her merry go round AKA the salad spinner!

Now that she’s older she helps out with every aspect of our family meals.  We plan meals together, she helps write out our shopping list, she gets her own little cart to fill at the store and is our produce picker at the farmers market.  After years of “playing” in the kitchen she is now quite comfortable in the kitchen and is has great knife skills. We made a casserole the other night and I didn’t have to chop a single vegetable

My advice to parents is to let food be a fun hands on learning experience!

• Let your babies play with their food!  Watch them explore their food and engage their 5 senses!
• When time permits, take your children grocery shopping, let them help you pick out a rainbow of fruits and veggies!
• Trust them with tasks in the kitchen – it’s the only way they’ll learn and gain skills.  Get them washing the produce, ripping lettuce, cutting soft things with plastic knives and working their way up to using a real knife, setting the table, and doing other jobs that help boost their confidence in the kitchen!

There are so many learning opportunities in the kitchen: math, physics, geography, reading and science to name a few! Cooking with your kids, when you have time and are not rushed, is a fantastic way to spend time together, pass on family recipes or create some new ones together!

I think it’s important that we engage our children in the entire process of their food.  Learning where it comes from and how it grows.  Helping to select, prepare and cook it. This gives parents the opportunity to have great chats about why we choose healthy foods for our bodies and how the choices we make effect us and the whole planet!

As parents there are so many things we want to pass on to our children.  Being a picky eater is definitely NOT one of those things.

So what happens if you want your kids to be healthy eaters and YOU are a picky eater??? It’s not an easy challenge to lead by example when you have a hard time with healthy eating yourself however it’s also not mission impossible! How do I know this is true?  Because I am still on that path myself and working on becoming a more adventurous eater! I think you would be surprised to learn that there are a lot of picky adults out there, so if you are one, don’t worry you’re not alone and there’s hope!! There are things you can do to get your kids on a path of healthy eating while taking that same journey yourself.

Get Rid of Guilt and Keep Trying

It’s so hard to “know” that you need to be setting a good example for your children but at the same time you can barely choke down a Brussels Sprout! The thing about guilt is that it is pointless and just keeps you feeling stuck.  Your kids are not doomed and neither are you…it’s never too late!  Take small steps everyday towards healthy eating, these things add up and turn into a good habit!  It takes time and many exposures for your taste buds to get used to something new.  It took me two years to finally enjoy red peppers!  I started off cutting them up extremely small (about the size of an eraser on a pencil) and would mix them in with food I enjoyed such as pasta sauce and on homemade pizzas.  Pairing new foods with old favorites is a great way to train taste buds!  Eventually the pepper pieces got bigger and bigger and now I wouldn’t think of picking them out of anything I eat!  We can work on our own eating habits at the same time as our children…turn it into a fun adventure together. So don’t waste any time feeling bad and just starting taking those baby steps with your child!

Watch Your Words and Keep Trying

Try to avoid saying strong statements such as ” I HATE broccoli” or “I don’t eat ANYTHING green” when you are eating with your kids because you don’t want to have them attach those feelings to the foods they are suppose to be eating.  The way we talk about food, especially around our kids does affect them, so instead you can try using phrases like “Broccoli isn’t my favorite but I’m going to give it another try” or ” I’m not used to the taste of spinach yet but I’m working on it!” You don’t have to like and pretend you love something when your kids can clearly see you barely choking it down.  When my daughter was younger she would say “My tongue isn’t friends with that yet” so we would keep introducing whatever it was that she didn’t like and most of the time they eventually ended up becoming friends! I think it’s good to let your kids know that everyone has likes and dislikes and that’s okay as long as we can keep an open mind and keep trying!

Get Creative and Keep Trying

Sometimes we get stuck in a food rut and forget that things can be prepared and served in many different ways! Since texture sensitivities can play a big role in picky eating it’s really important to try mixing things up to find what works best for you and for your kids.  You might find that kale is too strong raw but turning it into kale chips and voila you can eat a whole bowl in one sitting!  Personally I don’t enjoy the texture of raw blueberries but I love them when they are frozen. I think a lot of us experienced vegetables as over cooked mushy things that we had to eat as kids and that left a bad taste in our mouths so to speak!  But you can do so many things with vegetables and prepare them is so many different ways that if you are willing to explore you will find a combination that works for you and for your kids.  It might not be the same but that’s okay too.  My husband prefers broccoli raw and I prefer it steamed so when we have broccoli at our house we just leave some uncooked…no big deal!!  Buy some produce and see how many different ways you can prepare it…then set up a taste testing station at the table and give each a try…it will be fun for your kids and a great way to see what everyone prefers!

The best advice I can give is to keep trying new foods! It can take at least 15 exposures before a new food is accepted so if you don’t like something the first time keep trying it at least 14 more times! I believe we can turn any problem into a positive and picky eating is no exception. I can’t think of a better motivator to break out of the picky zone than wanting to set a healthy example for our little ones. Being a picky parent just means we have to work a little harder at it!

One of the most important roles of parenting is feeding your child and setting them up with healthy eating habits.  You are your child’s first and most important role model, especially when it comes to eating.  They are relying on you to teach them about the food they eat.

Humans aren’t the only parents with this important task! Animals also teach their young about food…they must show them the right foods to eat and which poisonous foods to avoid. They do this by role modeling to their young what foods are safe to eat and where to find them.  In the wild it’s crucial young animals learn the difference; it’s a matter of life or death. The young watch their parents over and over again and eventually learn how to find the right foods to eat for themselves.  Ultimately this is what we would all like for our children — to learn what foods are right for their bodies in order to be healthy and which foods to avoid.

However unlike animals we human parents tend to also pass down our not so healthy eating habits as well.  I find it interesting how we sometimes teach our children to eat foods our bodies don’t consider safe to eat.  Our bodies don’t know what to do with these highly processed “foods” and our children end up facing many health issues such as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure.

I’m not suggesting we strive for perfection when it comes to healthy eating!  I think we need to focus on setting the habit of eating whole foods on a daily basis so our children (like the animal young) see us eating the right foods day after day.

Your children are watching you…it really doesn’t work to follow the do as I say and not as I do rule!  They will do as you do – if you eat junk food they probably will too!  On the flip side if they see you enjoying healthy food every day – they probably will too! This means sometimes we parents have to put on a brave face and eat things we might normally not enjoy…in my case (a recovering picky eater) it is not always easy to do! I’ve forcefully smiled my way through many a mouthful when eating with my daughter. She has no idea how much I dislike asparagus!

Do you have any stories of overcoming your own food dislikes in order to set a good example for your children?

Kids love rainbows! What’s not to like, they’re so bright and colourful! Did you know you can take their love of rainbows and put it on a plate filled with fruits and vegetables?! Using a rainbow as a guide you can ensure your children benefit from a wide range of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients in their diet.

Phytonutrients are natural chemical compounds found in all plants; they protect against disease and promote health in plants and humans. They also give fruits and vegetables their colour. No single fruit or vegetable provides all of the nutrients kids need to be healthy. Eating a variety of colourful fruits and vegetables everyday is the key!

By breaking produce down into colour groups of fire-engine red, vibrant orange, sunny yellow, rich green, and deep purples you can make eating fruits and vegetables fun for your kids!  Even at a very young age kids can easily grasp the concept of eating a rainbow.

Here are some examples from each colour group:

• Red Apples, cherries, peppers, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes
• Orange Apricots, cantaloupe, carrots, mangoes, oranges, sweet potatoes
• Yellow Bananas, peppers, pineapple, corn, grapefruit, squash
• Green Broccoli, cucumbers, grapes, peas, spinach, kiwi
• Purple Beets, blackberries, blueberries, red cabbage, eggplants, plums

As parents we “know” our children should be eating a minimum of 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, but this knowledge doesn’t seem to be making its way into their diets!

Here are 5 tips to encourage your kids to eat more fruits and vegetables:

1. Keep Fruits and Vegetables in Sight: Stock your fridge full of washed and ready to eat fruits and veggies.

2. Remove the Competition: If you have unhealthy food options like sweets, chips and other junk food around they will usually be chosen over fruits and veggies! Stick with healthy foods in your kitchen.

3. Prepare Meals Together: Start bringing kids into the kitchen at a young age. Toddlers can wash and rip lettuce, preschoolers can measure and stir, and older kids can find recipes and help create meals. Children are far more likely to dig into a new dish if they helped prepare it!

4. Keep it Simple: Veggies taste best when you don’t do too much to them.  Eating them raw seems to be a favorite with kids.  Add some yummy dip and you’re done!

5. Keep trying: Kids need to be exposed to, and ideally taste, a new food as many as 10 to 15 times before they’ll accept it.  Just getting them to take one bite is a victory!

Do your kids eat five colourful fruits and vegetables every day?

What we surround ourselves with makes a huge difference in the habits we fall into.  If you want your kids to eat fruits and vegetables an important thing to do is to create an environment to encourage this goal. How do you go about doing this? Stock your kitchen full of colourful fruits and vegetables, and be sure to have some washed and ready to eat! Set a habit of making produce a part of every meal and every snack.  The earlier you begin this habit with your children the better! The goal is to make eating fruits and vegetables a normal and expected part of their meals and snacks. This will help avoid some of the typical struggles with picky eating! This isn’t to say the cause of all picky eating is habits! I know firsthand there are multiple reasons for picky eating.  However I do believe eating habits established at a young age play a big part!

I was curious about the eating habits of children raised vegan and vegetarian…where eating fruits and vegetables is a big part of every meal not a side dish…are there less issues with picky eating?  I asked Ruby Roth, a Vegan Mom, teacher and children’s book author what her thoughts were on this subject.  She said “As far as picky eaters go,  it seems like parents who raise their children vegetarian or vegan from birth actually have an easier time than omnivorous families do incorporating greens and vegetables into their family’s daily diet. Our little one, born and raised vegan and mostly raw, was sucking on sprigs of chives when she was two! Chives are the kind of thing that most parents think a kid would pick off their food, but my experience is that what a kid likes to eat depends on what has been normalized in the household.”

The food parents provide has a big impact on the eating habits of their children.  If the food is primarily unhealthy children will come to accept this as normal. Take Halloween for example,  we end up with a lot of junk food in our homes which means we end up eating far more of it than we normally would…just because it’s there! It becomes the temporary new normal to eat a few chocolate bars a day! If we want our children to eat fruits and vegetables it makes sense to make it normal for them to be a part of every meal and snack!

Leave a comment on how you incorporate fruits and vegetables into your daily meals!

Hiding vegetables in food has become quite popular; it also has become quite a highly charged topic, especially with moms.  There are very strong opinions on both sides and I think the reason is when it comes to parenting, we all want to do right by our children.  It’s easy to get defensive when we feel as though others are questioning our parenting choices.

I think its essential children know what they are eating, why it’s great for their body and where it came from. They are naturally full of curiosity when they are young which means it’s the perfect time to encourage them to explore fruits and vegetables! I think it’s important for children to know what vegetables look, feel and taste like.

That being said, I do think adding vegetable purees to dishes as a way of enhancing their nutritional value is a great idea!  I’m not fond of the sneaking and hiding aspect…I think we can just look at these purees as a normal part of a recipe. I personally wouldn’t put vegetable purees into dessert type foods; I think it might cause confusion for children — mom’s cupcakes are okay to eat, but not the ones from the store. That’s just my opinion though! It really comes down to one fact, unless we know all the circumstances it’s really not our place to judge how another parent decides to feed their child.

For parents with children who have sensory and problem feeding issues using vegetable purees might be the only way to ensure their children are getting important nutrients into their diet.  Parents with very picky eaters are sometimes so desperate and concerned they are just happy to know their child ate something nutritious whether they knew it or not.

I suggest if you “sneak” vegetables into your children’s diet be sure to keep introducing colourful whole fruits and vegetables to your children too…even if they just look at them at first!

Parenting is one of the hardest and most rewarding experiences; if we all extend a little more kindness and less judgment to our fellow parent I think it would be easy to see we all want to have healthy and happy children…we just take different paths to get there sometimes!

What are your thoughts on hiding vegetables? Looking forward to reading your comments!

Trying to feed a picky eater is not a very fun task…I know because I do it every day…with myself! When I was little I’d go so far as to pick the grated carrots out of carrot cake…my poor mom had it rough! It’s challenging to be a picky eater and a parent who knows the importance of setting a good example when it comes to healthy eating. If you aren’t a picky eater it must be hard to understand why someone can be so difficult to feed! Let me give you some insider tips to keep in mind:

1. Texture Texture Texture: Did I mention texture?! This is a big one…try serving your picky eater fruits and veggies in different forms and textures. For example I don’t like cooked peas…but I love them raw! Texture can be one of the biggest issues for a picky eater; finding out what textures they like will be very useful information for you! Maybe they like crunchy or perhaps bumpy textures like broccoli. Every picky eater is different! So if your child turns their nose up at steamed carrots try raw slices instead or maybe grated carrots! Adding a little dip might help too!

2. Serve a New Food with a Favorite: This makes a picky eater feel comfortable knowing there is something they like on their plate. I do this with food that isn’t my favorite but I know is good for me; I can handle eating steamed cauliflower if I can mix it with rice!

3. Serve Small Portions: Trying a new food can be far less intimidating when it’s just a small bite or two. If they like the food they can always go back for more…if they don’t like it (after trying at least one bite) then at least they can feel proud to have eaten most of their portion of the new food! The goal is to create successes for your picky eater. Getting them to try one bite is worth celebrating!

4. Make it fun: Kids want to have fun its part of what makes them such great people to be around! So when you want to get your kids on board for something try making a game out of it! Look at your kitchen through the eyes of your little one and suddenly the salad spinner becomes a merry-go-round for lettuce and the sink turns into a carwash for vegetable shaped vehicles! Use mini cookie cutters to cut out fun shapes in fruits and vegetables. Keeping things light and fun will help your picky eater be more open to trying new things!

Leave a comment on the creative ways you feed your picky eater!