My kids hate vegetables. What should I do?
First, does your kids hate *all* vegetables? Almost every kids tolerates one or two vegetables (or maybe even three or four). Ask your kid which veggie he likes best. Or take him to the store to pick out his favorites. Then serve those favorites often and start talking about how much he just loves those vegetables. And stop talking about the vegetables he doesn't like- especially in front of other people. You want him to see himself as a successful and enthusiastic vegetable-eater.
Serve the favorite veggies to him when he is most hungry and/or likes to snack (maybe just before dinner, while he watches TV or right after school). Next, add in tiny sample of a new (or previously rejected) vegetable or two next to his usual favorites. Don't make him eat the new one- in fact, don't even mention it- just let him see the new vegetables day in and day out. If he complains about the new vegetables perched on his plate, just smile and say he doesn't have to eat it if he doesn't want to. This constant exposure technique has been proven to be the best- and possibly the only- way to get kids to eat new vegetables willingly.
Last, eat your vegetables cheerfully in front of your kids. What? You don't like vegetables? Then you need to find some that you do like! Find new cookbooks, talk to friends, try a new cooking technique--but find a way to love vegetables yourself. Your children will (eventually) copy you.
Healthy food is sooo expensive! How can a typical family afford all those fruits and vegetables?
Food is expensive- there is no way around it. However, most families will find that they can "pay for" the healthy stuff by cutting back on the less healthy stuff. Here are a few expensive foods you may be able to cut back on to put money in the budget for the healthier stuff: meals out (that's a big one), drinks when you do go out to eat (order water), cold breakfast cereal (another big one), juice and other packaged drinks, fruit "snacks," chips and other vending machine snacks, energy and vitamin drinks, individually packaged yogurt (just buy a big tub), bakery cookies and cakes, giant portions of red meat, frozen kids meals, toaster waffles and chicken nuggets.
Or, if giving up stuff isn't your style, here are some tricks for finding cheaper healthier foods: buy produce in season (it's cheaper and fresher), buy produce on sale (it's usually in season), get choice rather than prime meat (it is leaner anyway), buy store-brand foods, use frozen fruits and vegetables, shop around (some stores have better specials than others) and check out the healthy foods at the discount centers.
Last, notice that many healthy foods are not any more expensive than similar Empty products. For example, leaner meats, low-fat milk, reduced-fat cheese, baked chips, whole-wheat bread products and brown rice all cost the same as the less healthy alternatives.
My daughter would eat huge amounts of food if I let her- she just has no stopping place. Do you still recommend "self-regulation"?
First, if you daughter has a medical condition which might be made worse by overeating, consult your doctor.
Otherwise, I recommend that you teach your daughter to self-regulate. This might take some time. If you have always regulated how much she can or cannot eat, right now she is depending on you to select food quantities. In most cases, once the child learns to depend on their own internal hunger cues she will learn to eat a reasonable amount on her own. Here is how to get her to notice how much her body needs:
1. Start by letting her self-regulate one meal or snack a day. For that snack or meal, serve only Smart foods that require plenty of chewing. Then serve it to her and calmly tell her to eat as much as she wants. Tell her that when she is full, please carry her dishes to the sink. A great after-school snack to do this with is a vegetable platter: baby carrots, celery sticks and cherry tomatoes- with dip. Or, for breakfast, serve her whole wheat toast topped with almond butter and apple slices, with nonfat milk on the side. When she stops eating, ask her if her tummy feels nice- full but not overfull. If she says it feels nice- tell she did a good job. If she says it is overfull, just sympathize with that feeling. ("Yeah, my stomach feels bad when I accidently overeat sometimes.") Once she is self-regulating this one meal well, experiment with letting her self-regulate other meals.
2. Eat with her as much as possible. When you notice that you feel full, say so. Stand up and walk away from the table to role model stopping when your body is full. But don't make her stop eating. She needs to feel when her own body is full.
3. Double check that you aren't feeding her too many Empty foods and expecting her to self-regulate those. Empty foods are often very hard for anyone to self-regulate. Instead, serve a reasonable portion of a treat to everyone at the table and warn them that they won't be having seconds. (Make sure you supply plenty of healthy foods, though, so everyone can fill up if they are still hungry.)
And always remember, it is much better for her learn to self-regulate--even if she overeats once in a while--than than for her to grow up always dependent on you to police her portion sizes.
My son will not drink milk. What do you recommend?
You are in luck. Our tip of the month is Milk for Milk-Haters. Enjoy.
Where do you shop for food? I bet you go to health food stores, right?
Actually, no. I shop at a plain old grocery store, King Soopers (called Kroger is some places), most of the time. Regular grocery stores, and even Wal-Mart and Target, are now carry whole grain foods, lean meats, low-fat and non-fat dairy foods and, often, a great selection of produce. I sometimes go to my favorite local health food store, called Vitamin Cottage, or to Whole Foods, to stock up on their inexpensive bulk items like nuts, oatmeal, dried fruit and so forth.
My child won't drink plain water. Is juice or flavored water fine?
Water is definately the healthiest beverage for growing kids... and for adults, for that matter. So, helping your kids learn to drink water is very important. However, many kids refuse water because they prefer something sweet and flavored. The problem with many flavored drinks is that they fill kids up. In other words, if they are drinking juice, lemonaide, flavored drinks or soda, they will not eat as much of the fruits, vegetables, whole grains, milk or other foods that their body needs for maximum health. And flavored zero-calorie drinks contain artificial (or sometimes "natural" sweeteners like stevia) that have not been scientifically proven to be absolutely safe for kids... especially when consumed in large quantities. Plus, drinking these beverages gets kids into the habit of craving sweet drinks. If your child doesn't like water, don't expect them to start drinking water today or even next week. Think about making the shift over the next few months, using these stratagies: 1. Role-model enjoying water yourself. Let your kids see you drinking water at least once every single day. Comment on how great it tastes and how refreshing it is. 2. Add a squirt of lemon or lime to water. Also try unsweetened herbal tea and seltzer water. These drinks aren't sweet and will help kick the sweet-drink habit, but may be more appealing to kids not used to drinking water. 3. Always serve the family water with meals, in the car, after playing or sports, and so on. Carry water bottles with you. Act like you think they will drink it. If they claim they are desperetely thirsty and still refuse water--recommend that they try the water. 4. Make it a rule that you order water or milk when you go out to eat. Don't order soda just because it is free with the kid's meal. (It is a good idea to warn the kids before you go to avoid a public tantrum!) 5. Try some gimmicks. For example, give them ice water, fun straws, new water cups, a water dispenser or water back-pack for when they go hiking or biking. If your child is younger, play find the water fountain when you go to shopping or play I-am-a-dog (or your kid's favorite animal) and let them try to drink water from a bowl.
Should kids only get dessert if they finish their dinner?
The short answer is no. Dessert should not be related to whether or not kids eat their dinner. You don't want to teach your kids to eat past the point of fullness--overeating is not a good habit! When they must eat dinner to get dessert, they may overeat dinner, then eat dessert after they are already full. Also, this type of bribery implies that dinner needs to be choked down to get to the good stuff...dessert. Ideally, kids should enjoy both dessert and dinner.
However, many kids will skip dinner then fill up on dessert. Unless the dessert is healthy, that's not good. Below are several solutions to this problem. Every family is different, so pick the one that will work best for your children and your schedule:
- Serve healthy desserts most nights (fruit, yogurt, fruit juice popsicles). If dessert is nutritious, you will want the kids to fill up on dessert.
- Eat a moderate amount of dessert as an afternoon snack and skip dessert after dinner. Just make sure the kids have a chance to get hungry again before dinner. For most kids, that means serving this dessert-snack at least 2 hours before you plan to serve dinner. If parents or teenagers aren't around for the afternoon treat, serve it to them later in the evening, after the little ones are in bed.
- If your kids don't go to bed right after dinner, delay dessert for a few hours after dinner most nights. That way kids won't depend on dessert to fill up on when they've skipped dinner.
- Give up dessert for a while. If debates over dessert have become a major headache for you or if you feel like they are getting in the way of your child's nutrition, they may not be worth having. Have treats other times or on the weekends instead.
Do you recommend a low fat diet for kids?
No! In fact, we don't recommend a low-fat diet for anyone. Fats are vital to good healthy. However, we do recommend eating less of the foods that contain lots of saturated fats (such as butter, full fat yogurt or fatty meats). Instead, kids and adults should eat more food that contains more unsaturated fats (like nuts, olive oil, canola oil, peanut butter or most salad dressings). We also recommend avoiding trans fat (found in partially hydrogentated oils) as much as possible. Trans fats are known to lower good cholesterol and raise bad cholesterol.
I would like my family to eat well, but we don't want to eat weird foods. Be honest, do you recommend weird foods?
Ha. No. You really should read "Feeding the Kids!"
But, to answer your question, healthy eating does not have to involve whatever you consider to be "weird" food. Your family can use the FTK system to select the healthiest versions whatever food you like best. You can eat well and still eat: beef, dairy foods including cheese, carbs, and even junk food. On the other hand, there is no one food you must eat. The idea is to both enjoy eating and eating healthy... at the same time.
What is different about the Feeding the Kids System?
The main difference between Feeding the Kids and other nutrition books or websites is that we supply specific, easy-to-use techniques that will help your kids LOVE food, LOVE eating and LOVE their bodies. Using the Feeding the Kids System will help parents know what to serve, when to serve it and how get their family to enjoy the healthy stuff. In other words, this system focuses on action- not guilt and deprivation.
Specifically, Feeding the Kids focuses on making eating right pleasant by adding in healthy food (rather than taking things away), not restricting portion sizes, finding healthy food that actually tastes good and eliminating the usual parent-child battles centered around eating.
Why don't you discuss breastfeeding or baby food?
First, we just love breastfeeding- and all of the authors breastfeed their own kids(in some cases for a really long time). We also believe in feeding babies and toddlers yummy, healthy, mushy foods. However, Feeding the Kids deals with feeding children once they are old enough the eat with the rest of the family. Babies and toddlers are simply a separate subject.
What brand of pasta (and cereal and frozen French fries) do you buy?
I get asked this so often...I dedicated a whole page to a list of my favorite Smart and In-Between foods. Go to the Best Brands page to see them all.
What do you have against bunny bites? I like my kids to at least taste everything on their plate.
If being forced to try a bite of each food doesn't bother your children, go for it. However, most kids hate being forced to take bunny bites. Wouldn't you hate to be forced to eat your least favorite foods? The truth is, whenever anyone eats something because they are forced to, it is much harder for them to develop a preference for that food. Anyway, dinner should be a happy time for laughter, conversation and enjoying eating--not negotiations over food. A much better approach is what I call the "Just Look at It" rule. Basically, everyone should have a dab of every food on their plate. But no one has to eat anything they don't want to eat. If a kid decides to taste some of a suspect food on their own (without being pressured) they can be objective about it. Over time, these little, low-pressure tastes may actually lead to a preference for the food. Also, children need to be given the opportunity to practice risk-taking by tasting new foods. They aren't really taking an independent risk if you are making them do it. If your kids seem to take forever to learn to really like new foods, you are not alone. Researchers have found that kids need between 8 and 20 exposures to new foods before they actually learn to like them. While you are waiting for your kids to learn to enjoy a wider variety of foods, be sure to serve healthy foods that you and other adults at the table enjoy. Go ahead and comment on how good the food is. Role-modeling is the most effective way to influence your children's food choices.
When will Feeding the Kids be available?
"Feeding the Kids" is available on this website and at Amazon.com. The "official" publication date isn't until October, 2007... so that is when bookstores will begin stocking it. (Don't wait until then, though! Order it on-line!)
How much is shipping?
If you order from this website, shipping is free. Get more details.
Are the authors of Feeding the Kids really uptight about food?
Ellie and Pamela are both totally obsessed with eating because they just love food. If you suggest skipping a meal, eating something that tastes bad or interupt them in the middle of a meal, then YES they are very uptight about food. But uptight about eating junk food- no! If you think they are neurotic about health food... then you haven't read the book. (And you should.)
Do the author's kids like to eat the food they give them?
Ellie's kids are all grown. And they all eat really well. So, she did it!
Pamela's kids are still, well, kids. They generally like the food she serves (except when it is burned or overcooked, as happens frequently). Her older kid eats everything but avacados, milk, bananas and the afore-mentioned burned food. But her younger kid refuses at least one food at every meal. She usually complain bitterly about whatever food she hates at the moment until her big brother screams "No bad-mouthing the food," a rule from "Feeding the Kids." Yeah, they are brain-washed.
