How to plan and prepare for healthy eating and attitude:
We understand that family life can be very busy and we often hear parents say that they don’t have time to cook and eat homemade healthy food or let the kids help with dinner as they feel it takes longer, there is too little time and it’s messy.
It’s when we are stressed, disorganised and unprepared that we grab a pizza, chips or reach for those salty ready meals.
With a little bit of planning everything is possible and even the busiest families can shop, cook and eat healthily.
- Start collecting children’s recipe books (with images), magazines, print outs, food and meal ideas from supermarkets so you have a good collection of food that your kids would eat and cook.
- Once or twice a week sit down and look through the recipes. Sunday is a great day to plan for the week ahead.
- Let everybody choose a day they will cook. Let them chose what to cook. Make the food fit into your weekly routine e.g. if Wednesday is a busy day make easy food that day e.g. tuna and pasta or something from the freezer.
- Write in your weekly food planner what you will eat each day and who will cook.
- Make a shopping list together.
- Go shopping together – buy only the food on the list
- Cook together. Cook once eat twice. Try to cook double portions and freeze the other for a busy day.
- Eat mindfully together. Take your time eating. Try not to eat in front of a screen. Talk about the food; the colours, textures, taste etc. Eating together is also a great time to talk about the day and life in general (see our Mindful Eating blog HERE).
- Tidy up together – kids need chores and responsibilities to feel part of a household.
- At all meals have a plate of raw vegetables – chopped and/or grated. You can add new ones each time. Kids are more likely to eat it when it is cut up, with different colours and presented nicely.
We wish you all the best
The ParentingSuccess Team
Watch this space for our weekly Friday Fun Family Food
www.parentingsuccesscoaching.com
