Ok, so most of the people using this site know what to eat, and when to eat it.
This morning on the UK news they were reporting how bad ‘packed lunches’ still are.
Small bit of back ground, Jamie Oliver recently headed a campaign to get school lunches in schools to be nutritional much better. From what I know they have become pretty good, vegetables, lean (ish) meats, no sugary drinks, etc. However some parents prefer (or the children prefer) to take their own lunch. Which for ease of eating are usually sandwiches.
The report was pretty much saying that only 5% of lunches taken to school meet the guidelines, many being made up of white bread processed cheese or meat, with snacks of candy or chips (chocolate or crisps).
They were recomending brown bread (no real improvement) and fruit or vegetable sticks instead of the other snacks.
Which got me thinking, I have only ever read small bits of ‘real’ information on what to feed children. Mainly from paleo articles which cover new borns on the mothers breast milk.
So, does anyone know what children should live on, should it be similar to ‘us’ protein, good fats, veg and fruit, little starchy carbs, just scaled down quantities.
Or do they need simple carbs more?
Does it really matter? Does some candy really affect them?
And what if they will only eat bread, is forcing a few veggies and a bit of chicken better than them being full on a few rounds of toast.
Little kids are pretty easy, they are creatures of habit, and tend to like what’s around, and get used to it.
I wouldn’t put my kids on any weird/trendy diet. I eat mostly Paleo, but I’m not going to force that one my kids. On the other-hand, I think if you stick to whole foods you can’t really go wrong. The proportions should be similar to ours, although if anything, it should be lower carbs (keep their insulin levels good) and higher fat, since they have all that fatty tissue i.e. their brains, still growing and developing.
Ask your kids what veggies they like, and give them these veggies.
If they have only eaten a few veggies before, buy new and exciting ones for them to try.
Prepare and leave fruits/veggies in the fridge or on the counter for them to eat, almost everyone reaches for the cantelope when it is sliced, but never when it is still in it’s rinds.
Grains are never a problem for many kids to eat (They be yummy), and meats (outside of fish) are generally not much of a concern.
My condolences if you try to get them to take fish oil.
And finally, if you learn to cook/season/prepare foods effectively, everything becomes 10x more delicious instantly.
Continuously ask your kids WHAT healhy foods they want to eat, as any of the above can be negated if you force your kids to eat it.
And for this snippet;
[quote]Woody369 wrote:
And what if they will only eat bread, is forcing a few veggies and a bit of chicken better than them being full on a few rounds of toast.
[/quote]
Yes to all of it except for the word ‘force’, you have to look both at the actual food being eaten, and how your child views the food. You don’t want them to get taste aversion to chicken because “That flavor-less shit was forced on me everyday for my entire time in high school”
If you get kids eating fresh fruits and vegetables early and often they will want to eat them. We did that with our youngest. Most of the time when we ask what she wants, it will be an apple or carrots or slices of turkey. Very rarely will she want junk food.
We don’t force her to eat anything. We allow her to try new stuff and if she likes she eats it, if not we don’t force her. She is the third kid, and this approach has worked the best. At four years old she regularly puts down salmon, scallops and some other foods you wouldn’t normally expect a kid to like. Who knows how long it will last though. Our middle used to love fruit and salads, now she only wants to eat cookies, chex mix and anything from panera.
The worst thing in the world for a kids diet…grandparents. They buy more shit food for them than you could imagine.
kids will pretty much eat whatever you give them… honestly, I dont see anything wrong with a PB&J sandwhich… they are young and that is hardly a bad choice…
veggies (with hummus dip), fruits, salads with meat and eggs… its not that hard… plus, a healthful pizza (plenty of examples on these boards) its always really easy - I make those when I watch my friends kids and they love them…
My kids eat what I eat - just in smaller amounts…well, sometimes. They can eat like horses some days. We eat meats (chicken, beef, lamb, fish), all kinds of vegetables, salads, flax bread, eggs, butter, raw olive oil, whole grain rice, raw milk, raw honey, etc. The kids have eaten that way since they got off the momma milk.
They don’t think twice about eating spinach, rice or whatever we give them. Now there have been a few challenges with making them try new vegetables, meats, etc when they were really young. However we fixed that by letting them not eat it at dinner…saved it till morning and made them eat it in the morning for breakfast before giving them anymore food. Worked like a charm.