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mamaslearning
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I'm overwhelmed! I have read many books, websites, and have been involved with groups like WAP and other healthy eating groups, BUT I'm still confused. I know this shouldn't be so difficult. 
We have a horrible diet right now because of using convenience foods during a survival time (ya gotta do what ya gotta do!). Unfortunately, it is very difficult to regain a whole food approach once everyone is addicted to sugar, grains, etc.
I keep reading about all the stuff you should avoid - sugar, white flour (and some say all gluten products), any processed foods, GMO, artificial sweeteners, fructose (especially juices), and more. Basically 95% of what you find in a typical grocery store.
So, what do we eat? How do I get a child that eats only PB&crackers, chicken nuggets, chef boyardee, ck noodle soup, carrots, apples, and milk onto a new diet? I have to take away most everything he currently eats! 
Any advice on how to make the transition? Should I supplement the kids as we define our new eating patterns? Any books or resource that helped you make this transition? Not just ones that give you what to avoid, but ones that really hone in on what to include?
Thanks a bunch!
(Now, I'm not judging anybody that eats the typical American diet, it's just that I feel convicted that we need to make changes for our health and well-being. Some people do not believe that processed foods are bad for you, but I feel that they are causing nutritional problems in my children.)
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Lara
DD 11, DS 8, DS 6, DS 4
St. Francis de Sales Homeschool
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Nov 03 2011 at 8:00am | IP Logged
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Lara,
I would simply recommend easing into a healthier eating pattern focusing on one thing at a time. Otherwise, it's just overwhelming, and the family is likely to revolt. You might start with healthy grains for your family and work to make incorporating those a regular part of your purchasing/making/serving/eating routine. Then perhaps consider your produce - just seeking the freshest, locally grown you can find and finding ways to incorporate those more and more into your meals and snacks. And then work on your meat selections. And then dairy. Or some variation of that, not necessarily in that order.
It took us up to a year to make significant shifts in our eating habits and though we have had to fluctuate back and forth between more convenience foods and then back to a more consciously healthier eating choice, returning to healthier eating is easier once you've made that big initial transition.
As far as books, I have a few but I found what worked best for our family was what we called *redeeming recipes*.  We'd take a favorite family recipe/comfort food and just try to make it with healthier ingredients, avoiding processed stuff - so take something like mac and cheese --> use your choice of pasta (different flours, whole grains, or just stick with regular), use good dairy products, and maybe throw in broccoli florets. So, I'd just recommend by starting out with some of your family's favorite meals and working to make them in healthier ways.
One of the biggest hurdles for us was what the family drinks. It takes a while for the water habit to stick, but that goes a long way toward helping with unhealthy cravings! We do a little milk, oj for breakfast and water for every other meal or snacktime unless it's teatime.
Good luck to you!
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Jen Mackintosh
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JennGM
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Lara, I'm on a similar journey. I was raised on Adelle Davis, but we do slip into bad habits. It's always good to read and refresh and refine. I just finished Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck and I thought her advice was very, very sound and practical.
Your dense foods, like animal proteins, should come from healthy sources, like pastured and grass-fed beef (avoiding grain fed). Eggs are best if pastured, but free-range and natural (organic good). Etc., etc.
She makes suggestions that seem easy enough to switch salt.
Buy local vegetables if you can. Serve more vegetables. Organic is good, but local is better if you have the option.
I think the hardest part is cutting away from the vegetable oils. That might require a little more work of reading labels and making more things like your own mayonaise and salad dressing.
mamaslearning wrote:
| PB&crackers, chicken nuggets, chef boyardee, ck noodle soup, carrots, apples, and milk onto a new diet? |
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So you could be making chicken soup with better ingredients, freeze small portions for your son during the week.
I'm not ready to throw out all grains or gluten, although for my own regular diet I avoid most starch because I see my body is insulin resistant. But my boys burn more calories, so I give them. We make brown rice and I would eas into finding a way to making or buying healthier crackers.
Peanut butter -- switch to natural kind. Jif has a natural brand, less sweet, but not as big a jump to the totally natural that you have to stir. Get to that in time.
Chicken nuggets -- there's a Young Reader's edition of The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma for Kids: The Secrets Behind What You Eat. A friend of mine has her children reading this, and one of her daughters came down and said "Did you realize that chicken nuggets is just corn on corn?" Interesting observation. It is going to take a while to perhaps make your own in a healthier version.
Milk -- make sure it's a good source.
Chef Boyardee -- I've got nothing. Never liked this as a kid myself; too sweet. Perhaps if you made a marinara or spaghetti sauce and freezed small portions and made fun healthy pasta?
Basically, I would do baby steps, have him help in the kitchen, have him help buy groceries, grow a vegetable garden, visit farmer's markets. Getting the child in the process helps them eat healthier.
My boys don't like soup, but when I have them in the process of cutting all the vegetables, they WANT to eat the soup. The pride of work is so neat!
Give fruit instead of fruit juices. If they are thirsty, drink water. Hard to transition, I know.
I have a list of what needs to change, what I want to do and what order. I will only do things in small increments.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Family in Feast and Feria
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JennGM
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Ah, cross-posting with Jen. She has better succinct advice.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Family in Feast and Feria
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CrunchyMom
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Jen and Jenn have offered good advice!
One thing that a lot of people who go onto more "hard core" specialty diets find is that their picky eaters are often picky because of a gut imbalance, so correcting their diet makes them less picky, not simply because they are "forced" to eat other foods.
So, if you do make some bigger changes, there is hope that once you make the transition, it won't stay as hard as it is.
I think that Jen's advice to take out things and replace them one at a time is good. And as Jenn said, some things are easy enough to replace, its just finding a different source. This is often where things get harder financially, but it is simple enough to implement.
I personally think that with cold and flu season coming up, the best habits to work on are eliminating processed sugars (wreak havoc on the immune system), and adding in some healthful things like making your own chicken stock for soups.
We've been on this journey for 5 years now, and it is indeed a journey as we are still working on things and dealing with ups and downs. Don't feel like you have to change everything overnight!!! We relied much less on convenience foods than most families do just because of how I was raised (my mom cooked from scratch a lot), and it was still tough. So, take your time, and ease in. 
As a side note, we get most of our carbs from fruit. I can buy local, pesticide free apples pretty affordably by the half-bushel. We use fruit and veggies (carrot sticks) to eat our nut butter snacks or with cheese. A little more work than crackers, but not bad.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Rebeccca
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Hello! I joined this board ages ago but had only posted a few times when the board shut down for lent or something and I never found my way back. I've recently rediscovered this little gem and have been lurking . . . waiting for an opportunity to become involved again . . . and here it is!
I think for he most part we eat quite healthy. I would say that we eat healthier than most but not as healthy as some. I would also say that you got some great advice so mostly I could leave it at that. There are a couple of specifics I would add, though.
I think a first great step is understanding that the convenience foods you're eating are addictive. Well done!
Second, I have a couple of suggestion for you for specific foods. Ages ago when I got my husband and daughter to transition from white to brown rice I had a terrible time. I was cooking my favorite which is brown basmati. They hated it and complained that it's too "woody," too much like eating bark. I looked around at other kinds of rice and noticed that jasmine rice has a lower fiber content. I gave it a try and we found that, while still whole grain, it wasn't as woody and they were willing to eat it. Further, I found that preparing the rice in the oven made it more palatable for them than the rice cooker. I, too, like it better in the oven so that was an all-around win. So, I recomment that when you switch to brown rice, you go with jasmine and do it up in the oven.
Alas, whole grain pasta . . . in my experience, cheap whole grain pasta is gross. Expensive whole-grain pasta is much better but . . . it's expensive. Sorry. On the other hand, pasta sauce is so easy to make, so delicious, and so cheap that maybe it will make up for the cost of the good whole grain pasta.
My mom got my daughter hooked on canned pasta like the one you mention. I forbade those and did what a previous poster suggested: I made a pot of small pasta shapes and added sauce. I also served them in a pretty bowl or tea cup b/c this makes them taste better (ymmv with boys). After a while I began to vary the experience with meatballs when we had leftovers and other goodies. At first she complained but I just didn't hear it. I only gave her the choice to have that or something else and Annies (the canned pasta) wasn't a choice. period. After a while it b/c a non-issue.
One thing I that helps my family and me find a satisfying is to make a meal with a lot a variety and built from protein first. Every meal has protein. every.single.one! I make sure every meal has a lot of variety, too, b/c I've noticed that this is far more satisfying for all of us. I don't know why. So, let's say that we're going to have one of my favorites, greek ck pea stew. Instead of a big bowl of stew we'll have a smaller bowl served with whole grain crackers or bread, a wedge of cheese, some marinated artichoke hearts, and a pc of fruit. We find that less food is more satisfying this way. Overall, we just eat less with more variety. I really don't understand this myself but it's true for us.
On the issue of taking away all the food you son loves . . . I normally don't suggest this series b/c of the blaspheming but Jamie Oliver did a series in which he tried to change the food in a school system. We did not watch the whole series b/c of his language but we did see several episodes. In one he showed how ck nuggets are made. Perhaps if you son sees that, he'll never want another ck nugget. As for what to have instead, perhaps you could make some kind of ck fingers/strips for him and teach him how to make them.
I've heard recently that the price of peanut butter will go up soon and stay up for a while b/c of widespread crop failures in the US and elsewhere. I dont know if there is any truth to that but it is a heads up. It's sad to me that wholesome food is so much more expensive than the chemical experiments they pass off for food. Regular pbutter has sugar and other ingredients that no one needs. It's more expensive but peanut-only peatutbutter is better for you. I imagine your kiddo will notice the difference but you could drizzle it with honey until you wean him off of it.
And speaking of sugar . . . you asked if there is a supplement. I always wanted to go off sugar but never could. It made me crazy to even try. Someone then told me to try L-Glutamine. I cannot tell you how helpful that was. It is NOT something you can pop in your mouth to conquor a craving. It IS something that when taken regularly can help overcome sugar cravings. It did for me anyway. I now swear by it (so to speak)! I just get it at the health food store. I used to take it everyday w/o fail b/c I was afraid the craving would come back. Now I take it everyday, then don't for a while, then do for a while . . . Honestly, it made such a difference for me. I really feel that refined sugar has to go. That stuff is addictive and keeps us shackled to unwholesome food choices. Me anyway.
So make ck noodle soup! That's healthy isn't it? We abstain from all meat all the time (yep, those meatballs above were, indeed, vegetarian meatballs) so I don't know for certain what goes in a ck soup but if it's made with wholesome ingredients, it otta be great.
Ummmmm . . . are you kidding that your son will only eat the listed items?
What??? No Spell Check??? I apologize in advance . . .!
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MichelleW
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I can't improve on what has been said, but wanted to mention that Maranatha makes a delicious all natural peanut butter that doesn't need stirred. We buy Adams Natural because it is so easy to find and not terribly expensive. We stir it when we open it and then refrigerate. It does not separate in the frig and it is still spreadable (it doesn't tear up the bread). We live in the NW so these may be local options, but I bet that there are similar options where you live.
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Michelle
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JennGM
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Also remember, you don't have to be perfect. There is always room for the occasional slide -- some nutritionists even say 80/20. Most people say once are entrenched in good eating habits, the processed food doesn't taste good and so easy to stay away.
Chiming in some other things. Start reading labels if you don't already. If you can't recognize ingredients, start looking for something that you can. I mentioned I was raised on Adelle Davis and also the La Leche League's cookbooks, which promoted whole foods. Instead of buying premade spaghetti sauce or a pcakge of taco spices, making from scratch is not that hard!
I agree with Rebeccca on the protein. I build our meals around the protein. We're omnivores, so we try to have a variety. Small carb, like brown rice (I use short grain brown rice which isn't that fibrous, either), then two vegetables and a salad.
How to shop? Shop in the outer rim of your grocery store. That is where the produce, dairy and meat sections are. The further you go in the interior, the more processed foods there are. Don't discount all frozen foods, as frozen veggies (better if organic) can be healthful especially in the winter months.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Family in Feast and Feria
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: Nov 03 2011 at 7:31pm | IP Logged
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Ooo  , I'm so excited about all this great advice!!  I think I'll take time next week and start planning out a transition; maybe one or two things a month (or more if they are easy switches). I always get hung up on doing it perfectly and feel defeated when I can't do it "right". Not this time, I'm going to keep pushing forward and if that means I only change a few things, then so be it. At least a few healhty habits are better than none, I hope.
rebecca wrote:
| Ummmmm . . . are you kidding that your son will only eat the listed items? |
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Basically that's true. He's 5 years old and besides the things I listed he'll eat spaghetti, pizza, chicken legs (only the legs, not even cut up chicken), corn (only on the cob), cereal, and oatmeal. Sometimes, if we're lucky he'll try a hamburger or some steak. I've tried involving him in the kitchen, sending him from the table hungry (eat what you're given or don't eat and he always chose not to eat), rewards, punishments, and finally it's to the point where if he won't eat then he as to make his own PB & crackers.
I guess I shouldn't be suprised. I remember many Thanksgivings as a kid when I ate a PB sandwich. Must run in the family. 
Thank you all for the boost to my confidence.
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Lara
DD 11, DS 8, DS 6, DS 4
St. Francis de Sales Homeschool
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Erin
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Lara
You have already received some wonderful advice, so just wanted to drop in and give you my support.
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Erin
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: Nov 07 2011 at 12:13pm | IP Logged
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I went shopping this weekend with a plan: Eat the same things, but either make them with the whole ingredients, buy organic versions, or do without.
I bought organic fruits and veggies when possible, especially for the dirty dozen.
Replaced cereals, chips, and other processed foods with organic/natural if possible or made a homemade version with the whole ingredients. So for ABC's, I found star pastas and I made sauce with canned tomatoes, paste, cheese, and seasonings. They weren't all organic, but just using whole ingredients is a start! I even cooked a chicken to make homemade nuggets (which I love, but got out of the habit with this last pregnancy) and soup broth.
I even splurged on some organic items like frozen pizza and waffles, but even with those extras the bill was slightly less than our normal weekly bill. By eliminating all the processed junk, I was able to buy better quality items.
Now, I'm just in the babysteps phase, but I'm feeling pretty good about taking these first steps. I'm not even letting myself ponder the biggies like grass-fed beef, chicken, eggs, and other local products. That will come in time. Plus, I need an extra freezer to do that sort of purchasing effectively.
The biggest hurdle this week - no eating out!! We tend to eat out at least once-a-week (carryout not dining in) because it's a chance to not clean the kitchen. But, I'm committed to this! If I want hamburges and fries, then I will MAKE them.
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Lara
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JennGM
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I'm happy for you! Babysteps is great!!!
I agree about the extra freezer...
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Family in Feast and Feria
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Rebeccca
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Wonderful, Lara! I'm celebrating with you, too!
. . . and when you're a little more into this we'll have a little talk about the real cost of cereal + milk + the amount required to get/stay full vs. other breakfast foods that are (almost) just as quick, more wholesome, and SSSSSoooooooo much less expensive per serving and for lasting satisfaction.
If this were a frugal thread, we'd have to talk about it now! 
WHOAAAAA!!!! I just felt an earthquake!!!!!!!
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Claire F
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You've had so much great advice already. I don't know if I have any better advice to give, but I thought I'd share a little of my recent experience in overhauling our family's diet in case any of it is helpful to you.
My husband and I decided we needed to make some changes as well - our kids were living on mostly cereal, cereal bars and crackers. Not that we didn't feed them other things, but throughout the day, that's a lot of what they ate. I started doing lots of research on the topic, and we decided to cut down to almost no grains, much less sugar, less processed foods, etc. We haven't tried to go all out and eliminate everything - it isn't realistic for us. But we've changed a lot of how we eat and it went far better than I thought it would.
We donated and/or threw out a lot of things from our pantry, then went on a big shopping trip and started stocking up on things we felt would be better to eat. Out went the cereal, crackers, cereal bars, fruit snacks, cookies, etc. Not that we never let the kids have those things now - but they aren't things we regularly have in the house. For us, it was better to get rid of things and not have them around - that way the kids could ask all they wanted, those things just weren't in the house.
With the kids, we focused on reminding them of the great things we *did* have to eat - things they liked just as much. I also found it to be very helpful to do mini-smorgasboard lunches and snacks. I'd set out bite sized bits of things like cheese cubes, ham, salami, apples, carrots, raisins, etc. and then they could pick at it and eat what they wanted. It helped a lot during the transition, as opposed to me standing in the kitchen and asking what they want and them asking for this or that and me saying no... and so on. So the smorgasboard idea worked quite well.
My oldest (almost 7) is quite picky and most of what he ate was processed/sugary/grains. He's not a big fruit or vegetable eater. I was the most worried about how he would handle the change, but he adapted surprisingly quickly. He didn't even complain that much! Once in a while he still asks if we can buy cereal bars or pop tarts or something. But they got used to what we have at home pretty easily and now don't typically ask for things we don't keep in the house.
We aren't perfect in how we eat by any stretch (good grief, we went out for pizza tonight, LOL). But we eat a lot better than we used to, and I feel really good about that. It does take a little more work for me to cook and prepare more things to have on hand (when you don't eat many things out of a box, you have to do more cooking/preparing!). But it's been worth the effort, in our case.
Good luck!!
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Claire
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Nique
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Rebeccca wrote:
Wonderful, Lara! I'm celebrating with you, too!
. . . and when you're a little more into this we'll have a little talk about the real cost of cereal + milk + the amount required to get/stay full vs. other breakfast foods that are (almost) just as quick, more wholesome, and SSSSSoooooooo much less expensive per serving and for lasting satisfaction.
If this were a frugal thread, we'd have to talk about it now!
WHOAAAAA!!!! I just felt an earthquake!!!!!!! |
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Rebecca, I'm really looking forward to reading your ideas on breakfast foods!
Thanks
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I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted - stay up all night or eat ice cream straight out of the container. ~Bill Bryson
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Healthy Eating
