Since we've been home this week, I decided to experiment a little.
I only let the kids eat "real food." (not the whole week but the last four days.)
And everybody screamed, "It's spring break!"
Ok I didn't announce to the kids…."You can't eat this, or you can't have that." I took a different approach.
I tried a lot of new recipes, then at meal time, I just made plates and said this is what we are eating.
Now, NORMALLY, that's mostly how we roll. At supper time, the kids have to eat whatever I'm serving. With four, we are way past buffett style. However, for breakfast and lunches, everyone is more choosy and it's really made my life crazy. Everyone also eats whatever snacks are in the pantry.
Here's what has happened this week.
I didn't buy their normal snacks.
And no one has even noticed!
We've tried
Whole grain apple muffins. No sugar…wheat flour, no eggs, no oil.
THEY WERE TERRIBLE! I think if the kids had stirred up dirt outside and added apples, it would have tasted better. I threw them in the trash because seriously, I could have used them as punishment for talking back that day, but I didn't.
Home made animal crackers. Mary and I made these. They are primarily sunflower seeds and coconut. No sugar…just one tbsp of honey per batch.
They really liked them so much that we made three batches. Garrett the grazer really liked. The suggestion was to dip them in greek yogurt which David liked but the others liked them plain.
St. Patty's smoothies. These were spinach, coconut, coconut milk (G allergic to milk), frozen pineapples.
Again…they loved. We had for breakfast with buckwheat waffles which I forgot to photograph. We did no syrup, but they had a little brown sugar with lots of strawberries on top.
Breakfast is our worst meal. The kids almost always eat eggs, but otherwise they start off the day with cinnamon rolls, pancakes, or cereal. TERRIBLE. Why so terrible?
Because it's nothing but a sugar load, then insulin surge, then sugar crash…and they go to school tired.
Here is what I found. They normally start looking for snacks by 9:30 if eat at 7:00 because they are already hungry. With the breakfast revamp….THEY DIDN'T EVEN ASK FOR SNACK. No joke. None of them did.
These were a huge hit. Breakfast "sushi." Don't panic…nothing fishy about it. Chopped red peppers (which really have little taste chopped up but very high nutrients)…egg, bacon. You basically whip eggs with a little bit of water…put on skillet and don't scramble. You cook a flat egg and add the bacon and pepper to top and let cook. Then transfer to whole wheat tortilla (this was only processed item they had this week!) Then roll up and cut like sushi.
These really were tasty and the kids ate them. David is DEFINITELY our picky eater. And he's gotten away with it because we don't take the time to stop and force the issue. He really had a hard time at the beginning of the week because he eats muffins every day for breakfast.
By the time we got to this, he ate it readily. He's tried peppers, pistachios, peanuts, and a number of other foods that we could not get him to touch. I wonder if it's because he hasn't had anything sugar or processed all week that he's getting used to another way to eat? He ate like that before we got him remember!!! We've ruined him with processed foods I think!
Hard to see but home made chicken nuggets. Chicken dipped in greek yogurt and battered with planko crumbs.
These were a HUGE hit. They liked these way better than the frozen one.
We also had sweet potato tots, and lots of veggies and fruit. All the recipes were from superhealthykids.com.
Here's what I found. It's a lot of work to feed kids healthy stuff. It's a lot more in the kitchen. HOWEVER, I did see a difference ESPECIALLY in the boys' behavior…particularly Garrett. He was much less emotional all week. He quit hitting out of anger (which we struggle with.) He quit agitating the girls. I didn't go over all this with them, but by this morning, Allie said, "Mom what's up with Garrett? He's not nearly as annoying?" BA HA HA HA.
What I learned shouldn't be news. When kids eat well, their blood sugar stays more consistent which has a huge effect on how much they are hungry and on sugar highs (hyper behavior) which is followed by lows (tired, whiney).
The kids did not feel deprived. In fact, I haven't said, "No you can't eat that." much AT ALL. They have not been hungry, they've just had the right foods to eat. There have been some things some just can't eat (Two of them cannot stand the texture of avocados) and I'm fine with that, but it is really motivating me to move toward the majority of what they eat being "clean." It will take research of recipes, batch cooking, and buying less of the packaged snacks they are so accustomed to. It may be more of a summer project, but I'm determined to add a couple of recipes a week, so that maybe by summer we can really make a push towards it and maybe we can turn into "those people who make their kids eat so healthy." BA HA HA!
