Eating Clean With Kids

How do your kids eat? Do they eat the same stuff you & your SO eat? What about if the kids have a couple cookies or a handful of chips? Do you allow that stuff in your house??

I have five children, My wife and I follow the 80/20 rule, 80% of the stuff our kids eat is good, wholesome, natural, etc, etc. with 20 percent being less than optimal. We do limit sodas though.

I have know a LOT of people, who never let their kids have anything bad, no sugar, nothing and in just about every case the kids are a basket case.

[quote]Gothic77 wrote:
How do your kids eat? Do they eat the same stuff you & your SO eat? What about if the kids have a couple cookies or a handful of chips? Do you allow that stuff in your house??[/quote]

Well, my little one is not quite old enough to eat anything more than baby food, but I can relay how my parents handled the junk food issue when I was growing up.

Basically things like chips and cookies were looked at more as special treats that we were allowed to have on occassion assuming that we were eating our balanced meals regularly.

I don’t agree that you should restrict a child too much, it may actually cause them to dislike eating good foods altogether and be drawn to unhealthy foods because of how they were restricted as a child. Like everything, keep the “junk foods” to a minimum and encourage healthier eating habits regularly.

When my little one does get to the age where she can eat “big people food” I of course want to teach her to eat healthy, but I also want her to enjoy herself too. I enjoy a good “cheat food” now and then, so I would’t expect her not to be allowed the same pleasure.

I hope I was able to help with your question, even though my child isn’t that old, yet. :slight_smile:

T-Vixen Mod

Hmm. That 80/20 rule seems pretty balanced.

I grew up w/ my mom trying to give us healthful meals, but I know we ate way more crap than we should have! Sugar cereals, kool-aid, chips, and candy were always part of our diet. I’ve been known to tell ppl, “Oh, I was raised on kool-aid and candy!”

I knew a family that limited the kids’ intake of sweets and snacks and while 3 of the kids turned out ok, the oldest 2 didn’t and their mother was a WACK JOB. I think it was more the mother in that case. LOL!

Hey, yeah. Much appreciate, T-Vix mod!

My kids are 3 and 5 yrs old. My son will eat broccoli till it’s coming out of his ears, but my daughter… I had to hide sandwich a piece between 2 small cookie bits in order to get her to eat it! eyes rolling

However, I recently made asparagus and she was the only one who LIKED it! She calls it green beans. If she can think it’s a bean, I RUN with that idea.

I guess I just have such a struggle dropping old habits - the way I ate growing up. I have little imagination for meal ideas, I guess. :stuck_out_tongue: They eat pears alot. LOL!

We had this candy jar, a huge thing, that we would chuck all the stuff from Easter/Halloween in that we didn’t eat. My bro and I had sweet stuff fairly regularly. He had two friends that were not allowed candy, maybe on a birthday, but that’s it! So, when they came our place, they’d dig into that jar and go to town. The problem was that some of that candy had been in there for years. Seriously, things tasted like a combination of everything in there, it was really nasty. But they ate it anyway, because that’s all they could get!

EW! That is GROSS, ToShinDo!

BLEH.

We were never told that any food was “bad”, but there was great emphasis on foods that were “good”. Good stuff was- Any thing vegatable, fruits, barley, fish, chicken, beef, deer, etc. Tuna was a special snack when I was good.
Bad just meant that it was poorly cooked.
We could have all the candy we wanted which wasn’t much.

Try everything! I’m lucky that my oldest son (5yrs) has always tried anything I give him at least once. My youngest is 1 and good so far. I never make a big deal about it and thank him for trying. I eat most anything healthy so I alway have a variety of stuff in the house. Now my wife is a different story. This is where you have to be on the same page. She used to make comments and cringe and that would turn off my son before he even tried it. Never push your dislikes on them, you never know what they may like. I even have my son taking spoonfuls of Carlson lemon fish oil! Make it fun and never make them feel bad about not liking something.

All the best!

You’re kidding, Trainerjim. Your 5 yr old takes spoonfuls of fish oil?! I am impressed. My 5 yr old son is the one that’s pretty good about veggies. He’ll eat carrots raw, which surprises MANY ppl.

I’m kind of like your wife - I have not always modeled good eating habits!

But I do try not to put my dislikes off on them. I don’t want to make my issues theirs.

One thing I hate is onions. I absolutely abhor them. BUT, my son will eat them!

Well, for the fish oil, he saw me taking a spoon of it after dinner and he said “what’s that?” Seeing my opening, I said “not until you done your chicken! This is special for after dinner”. He then tried it and thought it tasted “lemony”. Now he takes it about 2-3x week. It’s all in the delivery. : ) Kids tastes change a lot. He used to eat cold brussel sprouts out of the fridge now he won’t touch them.