Ideas to re-vamp our eating...long- sorry!

wispalover

Tue, Jul 17 2012, 10:23 pm

I glanced down at my shopping cart today and realised I had selected the most unhealthy snacks known to man (cheese curls, glick candies, gushers.. well you get the idea). Now this is not necessarily my fault because DH is working at a camp and I need some snacks that dont need to be refrigerated for my DS.
I have decided when we finally, finally finish here (I am counting down the days!) we are going on a healthy eating kick... no more excuses. I am preggo b'h, my DS needs to eat more healthy food and DH is extremely overweight.
I am an extremely picky eater and tend to rely on frozen food in a pinch when I am starving (like frozen pizza etc) and I find that I eat more kiddie food than adult style real food if that makes sense.
We only have chicken on Shabbat- I am a strict vegetarian, do not eat red meat at all except on a Chag (and if we have company), we do not eat any fish or have any in the house because of allergies. We rarely have juice, tea or soda- if we have juice it is freshly squeezed orange and we drink mostly water. We are into organic milk, cage free eggs etc.
Here is some examples of stuff I make and we eat (some of it is healthy some is not!).
Cauliflower in a cheese sauce, nut roast, nut burgers, pizza, lasagna, baked ziti, lemon pasta, roasted vegetables, roasted potatoes, salad (without dressing), crudite veggies if I dont want to make a salad, roasted mushrooms (although we mostly prefer raw veggies), hummus, challa (we dont eat a lot of bread during the week except the aforementioned pizza bagels), brown rice, veggie hotdogs and burgers with frozen oven fries, matza ball soup, bean soup (not into tomato based soups though).
My 3 year old doesnt eat a ton of the stuff I listed- he is EXTREMELY picky and although he'll eat stuff like a grilled cheese (only on challa though), cucumber sticks etc it is so hard to get him to try other stuff. So please send along any kid friendly veggie TNT recipes you have!
Stuff we do not like:
Eggplant, zucchini, very spicy things, canned/frozen vegetable dishes, artichokes, asparagus, tofu, stuff drenched in sauce (like teriyaki), not huge fans of cooked vegetables unless they are roasted and probably lots more things I cannot think of right now.
I do not think our problem is really the food I make- it is all the snacking we do. If I could remove all the snacking and replace it with healthy, yummy stuff and commit to making a proper lunch and dinner each day I think we'd be fine.

Any thoughts or help please??? And yes, I am aware I am a very picky hard to feed veggie embarrassed

Raisin

Wed, Jul 18 2012, 5:24 am

don't buy junk food. keep healthy snacks around - nuts, fresh/dried fruit, rice or corn cakes and a little chocolate (dark is better) for when you NEED something sweet. 100% fruit leather for your son.

Frazzled Mommy

Wed, Jul 18 2012, 10:00 am

Good for you that you are trying to make healthier choices!

Get the soda out of the house!!!! Ditto for the Juice!!!!! Drink only water or milk. You will see an instant improvement in energy level and all of you will lose weight with this simple change. It is not that hard to implement or to stick to this rule.

Snack on non-sugary cereal. Most cereals are fortified with vitamins, low in calories and fat, and filling...

gumby

Wed, Jul 18 2012, 10:51 am

She said they are not into soda and mostly drink water .
I try to limit snacks to hashems candies, such as grapes, cherry tomatoes, cherries, watermelon, other melon .
Also if you like I've cream make your own pops using no fat hot cocoa mix add water or skim milk mix well and freeze.

amother

Wed, Jul 18 2012, 11:15 am

I just try to make healthiER choices. So instead of regular pretzels, I'll do whole wheat pretzels. Instead of potato chips, get tortilla chips. Instead of fruit roll-ups, get Simply Fruit or fruit leather.

I try to have a lot of fruit in the house, and the kids know that most food you ask first, but fruits and vegetables you can take without asking. So we do bananas, mandarin/clementines, frozen grapes (YUM!), plums, nectarines, etc.

Switching regular pasta to whole wheat and regular bread to whole wheat is also a good step. Whole wheat angel hair is MUCH easier to get used to for picky kids, it doesn't taste much different than regular. We like the Windmill Farms whole wheat bread better than most other brands, and Pas Yisroel makes a soft and fluffy whole wheat pita too.

SS6099

Wed, Jul 18 2012, 12:23 pm

Very important not to have the kids feel deprived. I substitute whole wheat flour in cookies and try to buy Flutes or baked chips of some sort.
I allow super snacks on shabbos only. At least it gives the kids their satisfaction.

flowerpower

Wed, Jul 18 2012, 12:36 pm

Start by educating you, your spouse, and your child about nutrition. See what is healthy and why it's important to eat healthy food. Take your spouse and child to a big supermarket and let them pick out their produce that they like-theres a massive variety out there....... and healthy snacks too. Look at the ingredients and get stuff that doesn't have food coloring, msg, high fructose corn syrup... When getting cereals get those that have less than 10 g of sugar... Candy is for shabbos only. Get colorless ices.. Play around with vegetables. There are so many different ways to prepare it. Cut up melons and put on the table when your dh/child comes home. This will help them avoid another snack. Limit snacks to a certain amount a day and stick to it. Regarding you dh being overweight-what is the reason? Does he eat a lot at night, buy fast food....?