Food to inspire healthy habits in kids and help make meal-times fun
It can be terribly frustrating to grocery shop for a family, and lets face it kids can be picky eaters which makes the difficult task of modern day hunting and gathering down right impossible. So the team here at Kookist wanted to share what we have learned thus far in our own personal journeys with kids in the kitchen. We hope the below few tips and suggestions make your life a tad easier and perhaps inspire some lifestyle changes that will help your health and your wallet (it is true), but this is an expansive topic and we encourage our readers to just use our thoughts and experiences as a launching pad into your own family’s food journey. Just make sure to share any crowd pleasing recipes with us!
Weekly Grocery Cart Staples:
(The Kookist Family has 4 kids ranging from 10 – <1 years in age)
- Produce Aisle; Anything that’s fresh!
- Oatmeal, Yogurt (Plain or plain Greek)
- Avocados
- Beans
- Omega Rich Fish such as Salmon
- Minimally processed poultry – legs, thighs, or whole birds, low Sodium Broth is a gold mine of possibilities too and lends itself to so many great recipes.
Produce Aisle:
Simplicity is the key for this section of the store – We’ve all spent enough time being taught (food pyramid generation right here!) and hearing anecdotally the benefits of eating fresh food that we’ll skip the ever growing list of reasons to eat fresh. Frankly given the current state of most Western diets today, we thought – let’s keep it straightforward and encourage people to do the best they can, always striving to incorporate fresh fruits & veggies into meals and trying new things at every opportunity!
Plan ahead for what you need in your house and try to bring some color variety to your cart. So if your children are responsible for bringing a snack each day, look to apple slices or mandarin oranges instead of the granola bar or bag of chips. Boom – you just added 1-2 servings of fruit and cut out a ton of junk!
Lose points for starchy foods such as white or red potatoes and corn as their nutritional benefits just don’t stack up and (particularly with corn) we get enough in a typical American diet already.
Here are some kid-approved produce targets which can help form the foundation or compliment a variety of easy & delicious meals & snacks. We recommend re-upping weekly on these basics.
Breakfast:
Oranges, Bananas, Berries
Lunch/Snack
Apples, Oranges, Carrots, Mini Sweet Peppers
Dinner
Spinach, Cucumbers, Peppers, Onions
What does your cart look like? Are there anything you’d add to our list? Share your thoughts, feedback and meal ideas in the comment section and lets see what the Kookist community thinks.
