Better eating habits and kids....Need more help!!

[Dace]

I agree about the moderation.

I have to say my kids are doing really well at adapting. I guess this is the first time I am actually feeling driven to change things..not just lip service because it seems like the thing to do.

Went to the beach yesterday with a friend and her family. We have been going once a week for years. We put out a little roll up style table and load it up with chips, dip, brownies, crackers, and some sort of fruit or veg which is always completely ignored. I still brought chips and dip because I had them leftover form last week and I need to get rid of them, but I noticed my kids ate better, the actually ate their WW PB sammies...which frequently get ignored on beach days because they go straight for the junk... and they also chose more fruits and less junk.

I did not eat any junk...I ate a WW veggie sammy with yogurt on it, a couple handfuls of pea pods, a few WW crackers with some of my yocheese and a some Kombucha. I came home feeling great and ready to tackle the dinner for 10 that I had committed to. Usually on beach days I am wiped out big time. I always thought it was the day in the sun but suddenly I realize it is sitting eating crap all day!

 

[freemotion]

Now THAT was an important revelation! You have to put the right fuel in your car for it to run at peak and not break down early, and it is the same....but more important.....for your body and brain.

You go, girl! Your example and struggle are the most important thing for your kids, more than your words. But keep tellin' 'em why, too.

 

[Dace]

You know what Free.....my girlfriend was saying how tired she was and how she should have stopped on her way to the beach to get a starbucks. My son (AKA the pickiest kid ALIVE!) turns to her and says...Actually you should eat a couple of apples, they will give you a lift but they are better for you.

He referenced some naturally occurring chemical or something.....we were both quite impressed and I have no idea where he learned that!
There is hope

 

[freemotion]

Wow, that is great! And it is so funny to me that people will say (not necessarily your girlfriend, I'm just talking in generalities here) that it is too expensive to have a healthy diet, then they go to places like Starbucks. They won't pay $1.29 per lb for brocolli, but will pay $6 per lb for junk food and junk breakfast cereal.

Our grocery bill is getting lower and lower, the more we do ourselves. The fermenting is lowering it even more. This will allow us to switch to grass-fed meat without changing our budget.....amazing, isn't it? And the food is SO GOOD!

I will be ordering more peanuts soon, for canning boiled peanuts. I will be lactofermenting them first this time. They require a pre-soak in salted water, so I will just add some whey at the same time and let them soak overnight. Talk about a nutrient-dense snack food...or as I use them, lunch. Even with shipping, it ends up being less than a dollar a quart for me.

 

[Dace]

My goal is to switch over to all organic, free range/grass fed meats. I am hoping to find someone local who I can buy meat on or off the hoof from. But I am thinking,and hoping, that you are right and my food bill will start to get easier as I buy less processed crap.....I just figure that I would rather not eat the meat at this point then to rely on the bad stuff because it is cheap.

My GF has lupus and I am going to do some research about diet on her behalf. She knows that diet can help her control her symptoms but I think she is just overwhelmed at making a change. She drinks Red Bull everyday and east the same crappy american diet that so many others do (me included). But her health has gotten worse over the last few years and she is on a lot of meds and seems to be always trying new meds to help with new symptoms.

My 16 yr old said, I hope you don't get Jamie on this health food kick or beach days are gonna suck. (J is a great source of brownies and blowpops!) I told her how a better diet can help J to control her lupus and maybe get off some of her meds. DD said Oh yeah I guess that is important!

Baby steps

 

[Henrietta23]

Sounds like it's going well! You're very inspiring!

 

[FarmerDenise]

I think expecially with older kids (as well as ourselves), junk food is about convenience. If I present healty food snacks in a manner that they are convenient to grab and run, they are much more likely to get eaten.
Peaches sitting in a bowl on the counter will be picked up and eaten by Stepson (17), peaches on the tree....well, if he happens to be standing under one, he might pick it and eat it.
When there is no junkfood in the house, Stepson will make himself a sandwhich for a snack. But the junk will go first, healthy easy to eat snacks second and then he might make a sandwhich, but only if he is really hungry.
When the niece comes over, I periodically put a plate in front of her containing some cut up cheese, whole grain crackers and or small pieces of bread, assorted cut up vegies and fruit. She can pick and choose what she wants. I do this before she asks me for something, because if I wait for her to ask, she usually wants a cookie or chips (especially, if she has seen them on the counter). I usually hide all that stuff, when I know she is coming.
For myself, I find I eat better, if I have "convenience food" ready at hand. Of course when I am outside, That means I pick the fruit or vegetable closest to me. But in the house I try to have cut up cheeses, vegetables, hardboiled eggs, nuts, sliced whole grain bread and salad fixins in seperate containers. I'll toss some greens in a bowl, add some other fixins, pour some dressing over it and have myself a snack.
When stepson was younger, I found that he would eat a lot more vegies raw, than if they were cooked. So I used to keep cut up vegies for him in the fridge, which he would love to eat with ranch dressing. Even at dinner. We'd have our vegies cooked and he would have his raw.

 

[Dace]

Thank you Henrietta

FD I completely agree. The only reason this transition is going so well is the fact that it is summer and we are all home so I am pre-empting the hunger by setting out healthy snacks, I know this has had a huge impact.

One thing that seems to be hard for my kids is to recognize processed from whole. Although it sounds easy, but recognizing the fact that WW crackers or bread is healthier than white...they are both processed. Maybe that is too simple of an explanation because they do get that...I just can't quite put my finger on it but something in here is a bit unclear for them.

It is so nice to hear everyone else's experiences, thank you all for sharing

 

[freemotion]

Maybe if you show them a label....white flour will always have "enriched" on the label and a list of vitamins such as riboflavin that are added....this is because the processing of wheat into white flour strips it of vitamins and the law is that they have to add a few back in. They don't necessarily have to add forms that are usable by our bodies, however....Manufacturers don't add vitamins because they are worried about our health. They do so because they have to.

The exceptions are those "specialty" items like orange juice with added calcium, soda with vitamins (don't even get me going on that one! ), etc. If you read the label carefully, they use forms that are very cheap and either you don't get much out of them, or they can even be toxic. It is simply a marketing ploy.

They don't have to do that with whole grains, because the vitamins aren't stripped out. If you eat white flour, it is like eating styrofoam. Sometimes I can make an impact by asking someone if they would give an item to their dog as the mainstay of their diet. They say NO emphatically, that usually gets 'em thinking.

A dog trainer was asking me for a bit of free advice on weight management a few years ago (he'd given me plenty, and I'd massaged his working dogs) as he had a Sprite in his hand. I asked him if he would consider giving his dogs Sprite in their dish instead of water. Why not? They'd get sick pretty quickly. And fat.

 

[Dace]

Well my kids were pretty impressed with the little 'know your ingredients' bubble in the NT book. When they looked up Cool Whip!

I think that when we shop I will encourage them to look at the ingredients, I think that reading that for themselves will go a long way. To be able to read tortilla chip ingredients from a big name brand that has all kinds of crap to a small organic brand with just a few will probably make sense to them. I am in this for the long haul so I guess it is just one little hurdle at a time huh?