Enough about peanut butter-filled pretzels. Today let’s talk about food that’s good for you.
On Tuesday I blogged about carrot juice popsicles. They sound gross, don’t they? Well, in reality they are very good—and in truth, my children (and husband) see me juicing the carrots and know that this juice is an ingredient.
Ah, but do they see the spinach leaves I’m mixing into the Iceberg?
I myself love a good glass of carrot/apple juice—I crave it, actually. My kids and my husband? Not so much.
That’s why smoothies and popsicles are such a blessing. You can add your protein powder, your flax seed oil, your vitamin-packed carrot juice…and the flavors are then masked enhanced by the frozen fruit, yogurt, and/or fruit juice.
It’s a win/win situation.
So tell me: What do you do to sneak (and/or add outright) healthy food into your family’s diet?
This mom-of-many (and wife-to-one) wants to know.
All for the greater glory of God,
Hm, what a fun topic. I guess I don’t sneak much. My one veggie hater eats an incredible amount of fruit, so I figure it balances out more or less.
One thing I try to do (does not always work) is make sure that there’s something on the table for everyone to like. I attempt to have at least two to four different vegetable or fruit side dishes on the dinner table. I have to keep changing them out as people claim to hate something they loved last week, but… for example, for a while there my middle child loved raw green beans. Well, we had raw green beans as part of our salads for quite a while.
Not so much the “sneaking” method as the “full frontal assault” method.
And no, it’s not a lot of work since they invented those steam-in-a-bag veggies, or bowls of baby carrots, or canned pickled beets 🙂
I am hesitant to say this, lest anyone decides they don’t want to come to tea over here. However,I am a sneaker of ground garbanzo bean or pinto beans into chocolate chip cookies.Also a little flax seed finds its way into an awful lot of things and since I’m now revealing all, I could mention the green (spinach) popsicles too.
What’s that…you can’t make it for tea?
I’m all for sneaking healthy food into our kids’ mouths! I recommend the book “The Sneaky Chef”….
I also sneak carrots into pasta sauce and I put ground flaxseeds in everything from my pancakes to meatloaf…at least their going to get their fiber.
Hmmm. Well I don’t have kids so I don’t really have to sneak. 🙂 But, I do like those prepackaged pom seeds I can get at trader joe’s. They look so pretty, I imagine kids would eat those. Nigella Lawson uses them as dessert topping!
We are on a smoothie kick lately – blueberries, strawberries, yogurt, and orange juice. I’m not sneaky about it, but it makes me feel awfully good about myself that the children love it. I am making flax seed bread today.
I have learned a trick during this pregnancy.
If I love it, everyone else becomes interested in it too!
For the past few months, I have been craving–and I mean obsessively craving–watermelon, and, to a lesser extent, frozen grapes. At this moment, the two favorite snacks in this house by far (more popular than chocolate) are watermelon and frozen grapes. Part of the reason is that I’ve been so into these two fruits that I practically growl at anyone who would dare take them from my stash. Watermelon is the most coveted of all delicacies around here.
BTW, I’ve been doing a bit of research, and watermelon is great for expectant mothers: http://www.fitpregnancy.com/yourpregnancy/850
It’s also good for “stomach flattening” post partum: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/25208369/
Let’s hope so! I need it!!!!
I read the “Deceptively Delicious” cookbook and I guess I am in the minority here, but I didn’t really like the premise. I don’t hide what I am adding to food. But I firmly believe in “don’t ask, don’t tell.” For example, they don’t like Swiss cheese on sandwiches–but there is a chicken dish I make with Swiss cheese and they all love it. I don’t advertise what’s in it, but if they asked, I’d say.
Bearing, pickled beets are SO easy to make! My family loves them.
I too like to make sure there is something each person likes. Summer is great because they all LOVE raw peppers, carrots, cucumbers. A platter of those on the table makes everyone happy (and I can have my brussels sprouts.)
Oh, are we supposed to sneak that? I just say, “Quit your whining and eat your brussel spouts/whole wheat bread/brown rice/insert other good-for-you-food here.” Eventually, they get over it. After all, brussel sprouts are kinda good.
Great topic Margaret!! I actually am pretty upfront with mine about what they are eating, no sneaking cause if it’s wierd, they just won’t eat it period!!
I’ve switched to roasting almost all our veggies, like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, beets, etc. They are so yummy and the kids really do like them. Also trying to have them eat a “no thank you” bite is a way for them to at least try something new at a meal. I’m not much of a casserole cooker either so it’s difficult to disguis items if there’s not alot of other stuff all mixed together.
Mine have all grown to love just about all I cook, but there’s always one rebel at the table, which just never know which night it will be :)))
oooh, some great ideas! My little ones are too little to have to hide, I simply keep reindroducing – they’ll learn to like it, darn it! lol. However, I figure that most people don’t get enough even though we try, so I tend to be creative when possible.
chopped spinach in meatloaf. (no, really, just chop it fine and tell me who will notice it’s not parsley?) this is also great because of the added iron, plus chopped frozen spinach is one of the cheapest values in the grocery at any time.
ground flaxseed – interestingly many people have mentioned this, but I thought I’d add that you don’t get the Omegas unless it’s ground. So grind away and add to meatloaf, breads, pizza crust, cereal. note: it does not absorb water, so don’t substitute just add.
offering half a plate of veggies at dinner, or substituting a salad for lunch – for adults, anyways. If you top the salad with bright colors like beans, carrots, chopped nuts, crumbles/shredded cheese, mandarin oranges, berries (like those headed just barely past their attractive state) etc., it makes the salad oh-so-much-more interesting.
smoothies are perfect for any one, any age. Love ’em. made a mistake last time and we ended up with “smoothie soup” and it was good and the toddlers ate it anyways!
going back to meatloaf – I love it. It’s the perfect comfort food, everyone feels like they’re indulging, and yet it’s one of the greatest ways pack in hidden nutrition, and cut extra fat and nobody notices!
I also love to change things up a lot, as we get bored. Veggie stir fry is nothing more than tons of veggies in a different flavor than usual. make it colorful or different and we’ll eat healthier.
LOVE your blog!
No sneaking here. I just throw random food at them and they either eat it or they don’t. Everyone loved fruit and salads. Other veggies are a bit more hit and miss. I try to use real food (as opposed to processed) as much as possible. I also avoid low fat / low sugar options as I reckon my skinny ribs, over-exercised children need all the calories they can get. Shame the same isn’t true of their mother!
No sneaking here either. What would my grandmother thing!
We eat sort of raw. The kids like raw vegetables and fruits. We eat eggs and dairy. Protien in the form of anything we shoot. Mostly deer. All that sneaking would be too much work for me!
My mom used to run a bag of frozen mixed vegetables through the blender and stir it into the spaghetti sauce.
No sneaking here, but then, I don’t have kids yet either.
Meredith, a “no thank you” bite? Is that what you call it? How does that work? (I am always looking for new ways to SAY the same thing that sound better, at least to myself, ha ha)
Instead of “just try it!” we tend to order our kids to have a few nibbles to “practice liking it.”
I exempted my middle child from nibbling Brussels sprouts after he almost threw up on his plate. I decided he wasn’t kidding when he said he couldn’t stand them.
THere are some brill ideas here, but I’ve never snuck anything. I ask them to at least try a bite. A bite means a bite, not a lick. I especially like the veggies ground up in the spaghetti sauce – brilliant!!
Margaret and fans…
You’ve all got families and budgets and so naturally you feel your doing them both a service by shopping at Sams or SuperWalmart or Super Target or [Insert your favorite big box store name here…] because the prices there are so attractive. Well, stop.
Produce from farm to the superstore, on average, travels 1,500 miles and likely was picked long before it was ripe so that it will appear fresh at the grocery store. But appearance is deceiving. All this travel and the genetic engineering that goes into produce to make it “durable” ruins the taste and squanders the nutrition. Wondering why you have to sneak veggies to the kids? It’s because the grocery store veggies taste like crap.
To those of you who live in warm climates, I suggest you go to your local famers’ market with the kids and do some sampling. To those, like me, who live in Minnesota, we’re stuck waiting unless, like me, you invested some time last summer freezing the good stuff to enjoy this winter.
And Margaret, I know you are struggling with weight gain during your pregnancy, and you are uber busy with school and raising the kidlings, but seriously, stop shopping at Sams. Seriously. Where you spend your money speaks volumes about your values, i.e., “my savings are more important than: the environment; the economic impact of those who labor at this place without decent benefits; the health of the local grower who commits to organic and sustainable agriculture…” And, come spring, work weekly trips to the Farmers Market into your kids’ curriculum. You can find teaching tools on agriculture online at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (http://www.mda.state.mn.us/kids/default.htm) And once you discover how good Minnesota Grown veggies taste, you may find you no longer have to sneak healthy foods onto the kids’ dinner plates. God bless…
I sneak a lot because I have the pickiest eaters on the planet:
little meat, no veggies, no potatoes 'cept fries, no rice… I can't afford to just let them eat pb&j as the alternate meal if they turn their nose up and they will refuse to eat meal after meal until Sunday morning when they start vomiting- then what do you do? Not go to Mass?
I put ground flaxseed and wheat germ in everything, add veggies to sauce, and let them eat as much fruit for snacks as they want.
Hm, the last time I checked, transportation accounted for just under one-eighth of the carbon footprint of food consumed in the United States of America.
So, we could reduce our carbon footprint by buying only local food. (I don’t know about you, but the more local food I buy, the more gas I use driving around to pick it all up from the co-op, the farm drop, the farmers market, etc.)
Or we could reduce our carbon footprint to the equivalent of all the food being grown at our doorstep, not by changing where we buy our stuff, but by reducing our consumption and/or our waste so that we simply buy twelve percent less stuff.
Food for thought.
Word verification: nottea. What is UP with your word verification, Margaret? It’s playing tricks with my brain.
Rather than sneaking,I guess I am more of a “don’t ask don’t tell” type. I put chopped fresh spinach and grated carrots in just about everything I can get away with (spag sauce, lasagna, etc). If they ask, I tell them, but I don’t volunteer the info.With the spinach it is kind of obvious, though they don’t seem to mind, especially if there is enough cheese involved.
Like Meredith I have switched to roasting most of our veggies and the kids really seem to prefer them that way. Except broccoli which according to both kiddos and dh must always be served freshly steamed. The I cannot cook enough to satisfy them!LOL!
I add vegetable stock to many dishes to replace other liquids (like for water in chicken and rice, etc). Adds great vitamins and flavor while being virtually undetectable.
When we had chickens and I could vouch for the freshness of the eggs I would whip some up into our smoothies for extra protein. But I don’t do that any more due to questionable egg freshness.
I also used to have one toddler who would get constipated a lot. Prune juice popsicles worked wonders.
Says Jackie: Where you spend your money speaks volumes about your values, i.e., “my savings are more important than: the environment; the economic impact of those who labor at this place without decent benefits; the health of the local grower who commits to organic and sustainable agriculture…”
Most of us do what we can, Jackie. Raising and homeschooling six or seven kids on a budget means, for a lot of us, that there are no organic chickens or farm fresh vegetables in the house. But those store bought carrots that traveled 1500 miles to get into Margaret’s frozen pops are still better than the Sarah Lee Carrot Cake she could have pulled out her freezer. We do what we can, and it does not speak to anything except that we had to spend our money elsewhere. Like to pay for the propane to keep the house warm. Or to buy (second hand) pants for the eldest daughter who seems to sprout three inches every two months. Or new math books because everybody just finished up their old ones.
We can’t have or do everything we’d like. Most of us have to choose, and we do the best we can.
No sneaking here either. I find it too much work and then (the one time I did sneak flaxseed in muffins) they suspect something different and just don’t eat it. I do.
I try to offer healthy choices and half the kiddos like them and half don’t. Some like fruit, some like veggies and one likes it all!!
Keep reintroducing and being a good example, it has to pay off someday. Someday my very fussy 6 year old will like veggies, right? What woman doesn’t like a good salad?
I do like smoothies too, the kids get it all in one and they see what is being put in but somehow the “chunky” yogurt is ok when put into a smoothie.
Fun topic Margaret!!
“no thank you” bite and “practice liking it” bite, I totally love those words, they are great!! We do the everyone has to have at least one bite thing and some do it and some struggle and whine and well, you know!!
Practice liking it bite, that’s my favorite!! Thanks bearing!!
We can’t afford to buy organic and I love Sam’s Club!! Their fruit is the best!! Just this week we went back for more blueberries and blackberries and believe me they didn’t taste like crap!! The kiddos loved them!!
And this summer, we had that same container of peanut butter pretzels, they were great to take to the pool!!
I don’t think this topic was about where we shop, but how we try to feed our families healthy foods.
If we lived in a warmer climate, I admit, I’d probably not shope as much in a store, a great Farmers Market would be super, or even better yet, our own garden, those home grown garden veggies are sooooo good and what makes them soooo good is that fact, I guess that we shop at Sam’s Club, it’s a win-win situation!
Yeah, I have to give credit for “practice liking it” where credit is due: Eat Healthy, Feel Great by W. and M. Sears. It suggests “taking a few nibbles” of a new food each time it is served so that you will like it more each time.
Somehow at our dinner table that has morphed into “Take a few nibbles so you can practice liking it. That way, if you ever HAVE to eat some, you’ll be really good at it. Because you can’t hold your nose when you’re a guest in someone’s home.”
I had to practice liking broccoli, myself.
In my opinion it’s not immoral to shop at Sam’s Club. I have to say, as a mom of 5, soon to be 6, I have to respectfully disagree with you jackie. God bless you for being so eco-conscious. I am called, as all of us are, to be stewards of God’s gifts. In fact, we are called to live not only within our means, but below our means so we can give our “first fruits” to the Lord.
Sam’s Club is 1.2 miles from my house. The nearest co-op? 7 miles. My yard, be it large, does not produce produce. I’ve tried. Being the daughter of a horticulturalist, I have at my disposal expert advice about growing ANYTHING. My dad said, “Give up.” If I want to purchase hormone free unpasteurized milk, I would need drive many, many miles. And in my VAN, I would use much more fossil fuel, thereby increasing my carbon footprint.
What I see lurking in your comment is that we are bad for shopping at Sam’s Club, which sometimes leads to the philosophical argument that we have too many kids. I’m not picking a fight. I want to defend Margaret (and her fans) that shop at Sam’s Club, Super Target or Super Wal-mart.
I see, following your profile, that you run a local farm, so now I understand your perspective. Thank you for doing what you do. My grandparents had a dairy farm. It’s in its fourth generation now (my cousin is running it) and it’s important work. Tilling the soil is God’s work, too!
I too, like you, make choices to live my life as I am called by Christ. Really, those of us that shop at Sam’s are just trying to feed our families, not wreck the environment. I agree that where I spend my money speaks volumes about my values, which are: being open to life, raising saints, being stewards of God’s gifts, even if they come from Equador, Chile, Mexico, or California… And sometimes that means I shop at Sam’s.
When my kids were younger I used to made a mush of oatmeal, ground carrots, onions, celery and milk in the blender and add it to meatloaf instead of the bread crumbs. It came out good! I still use oatmeal in my meatloaf, but now I can actually chop the onions and make them visable LOL! I have also been known to add chopped spinach to any and all soups. We used to make smoothies for breakfast too, and you could add a number of things that they never could detect! Wheat germ, flaxseeds and other healthy things became part of their daily diet. All of them eat well now, but some more than others.
This is really out there because prophesying is not my thang, so to speak.
But I think that if you were to look into your crystal ball and tell me, “Some day in the future, organic farming will be the norm everywhere in this country and in many of our country’s suppliers. Some day in the future, low- and middle-income people will be able to afford to buy humanely produced meat and dairy products. Some day in the future, even city dwellers without a patch of ground to call their own will be able to eat local produce year round without breaking the bank. Some day in the future, efficient distribution networks will maximize the variety of nutrients available to the average growing American child while minimizing the total transportation costs, both direct and indirect.”
I might say “Let me see that crystal ball… hmm… what’s this… What’s the sticker on that organic local tomato say? I can’t really see, I think it starts with a “W” and rhymes with “ball mart….”
I would love to see more people eat organic food. Good for them and good for the environment. For it to happen, in a way that is economically sustainable for urban, working families, the food is going to have to be transported to cities and sold in large distribution centers, a.k.a. “big stores.” The more people demand it, the more the market grows, the more that big grocery and discount chains are going to respond. When the distribution network is already in place, higher-quality food is going to be transported and delivered far more efficiently than in the loose, thinly spread non-network of farmer’s markets and informal co-ops.
When you have to pick up your raw, locally produced cheese once a week in a co-op member’s garage 30 miles away, and to the co-op to get your local, pesticide-free tomatoes and lettuce, and drive out to the country twice a year to get your hormone-free, vegetarian, nitrate-free pork products, and a third place to get your wheat berries to put through your home mill and bake into bread, know what? Only rich people with cars can eat BLTs.
Word verification: banter. WT#?
My mother-in-law would love this conversation!
I’m enjoying it too, actually, and am learning a ton from my very smart friends of the heart.
Oh, Margaret, I forgot to recommend the book _One Bite Won’t Kill You_ by Ann Hodgman. She is ALMOST as witty as you. She’s collected a great set of kid friendly recipes. I love that book and use it often. The Baked French Toast is a staple at our house as is the Apple Stuffed Pork Tenderloin.
If you want to look at it let me know! Amazon has it and you can “search inside”.
my kids will actually take cod liver oil, from a spoon, no sneaky tricks needed, just got them used to it since they were babies, so once they learned how to “stomach” something so gross tasting AND smelling, i don’t think i could give them anything worse than that!=)
I do sneak things, but the kids know it. So, maybe it’s not really sneaking. I put all kinds of things into spaghetti, etc. They are pretty good eaters, and willing to try new things. But, in my opinion, the better-for-you I can make our food, the better. So, if I can put veggies in spaghetti, that adds veggies to our diet outside of the veggies we’re eating, anyway, without adding more calories or meaning the kids have to eat less spaghetti, which they love.
As far as whole wheat, raw sugar, etc, they eat it because that’s how I make it. They’re fine with it.