Michele Sears

Hello,

I've really been enjoying the responses regarding the original e-mail I
posted. I am striving towards little to no control in regards to my kids,
and practising saying yes more often. With regards to foods containing more
sugar, I am personally concerned with cavities, and overall nutrition.
Although initially much more relaxed with dental health, by the time my
second child was 3 this was resulting in more cavities than we liked (And
that was a time of very, very little sugary food). So, now we're much more
conscious of oral care, which includes brushing/flossing right before bed,
and this seems to work so far.

As far as encouraging open choices regarding food, what I'm seeing that
would work for me, and may be exactly what others on this list are doing, is
that while having lots of sugary/fried snacks around for choice/enjoyment is
important if everyone wants it that way, also providing or having more
healthful snacks on hand and easily available is also important. Combined
with talking about what's in foods casually so kids can make connections
between what they eat/how they feel as it pertains to their experience. So
they can also learn about protein etc.

I can see that this might be more "work" for me, since if I would like
healthy snacks to be available, I will need to make them easy and
accessible, since sugary/fried snacks tend to be shelf-stable and easy to
grab. Carrots, apple, cheese, etc are not always immediately edible, and
require cleaning, peeling, cutting, etc - by me for the younger ones.

Anyways, the kids have really been enjoying my tendencies as of late to
say yes, or go ahead, or as much as you'd like, lately.

How do others keep healthful food choices as available to themselves and
their kids as the shelf-stable more sugary/fried choices?

Michele

Danielle Conger

How do others keep healthful food choices as available to themselves and
their kids as the shelf-stable more sugary/fried choices?
========

I've always been a finger food kind of person, so I tend to make platters for the kids to share. I usually try to have a bit of everything: fruit/vegetable; protein; something crunchy. Lots of times I'll do color platters: orange, yellow, green. That way there's something for the kids to choose from and often when one thing's gone, they'll eat the others before coming for a refill.

For example, I might make up an orange platter with carrot sticks, cantaloupe cubes, cheddar cheese sticks and cheese crackers. Or I might do a tray of cucumber circles/sticks, string beans, honey-dew melon, and guac tortilla chips. I started this when the kids were little, and they still think it's fun. We'll also do shapes sometimes: triangle triscuits, melon balls, square crackers, shape cheeses. I find that they really like cookie cutter shapes for sandwiches, cheese--anything that will cut well. And they really like cocktail toothpics, too. Those kinds of things go over big.

I always think of the movie Mermaids when I do this kind of stuff. The mom only ever made hors d'oevres--I forget why.

<>--Danielle

http://www.danielleconger.com/Homeschool/Welcomehome.html

soggyboysmom

--- In [email protected], Danielle Conger
<danielle.conger@c...> wrote:
> How do others keep healthful food choices as available to
themselves and
> their kids as the shelf-stable more sugary/fried choices?
> ========
Something DS has fallen in love with are cheese shapes. We buy a big
block of cheddar and slice it about as thick as sugar cookie dough
then cut it with mini cookie cutters. Pop half a dozen give or take
into a ziplock bag - quick, fun, protein snack. He also likes just
getting out the slicer and the cheese and cutting some for himself
(he's 6). Those wire slicers don't cut skin easily so he can use it
himself (also slices eggs, kiwi, banana sections, strawberries,
mushrooms and COOKED potatoes). As was mentioned, pre-sliced melon
chunks are a big hit here in summer. Yogurts (the 4 oz size seems to
be a better snack size than the 6 or 8 oz ones) are nice - when DS
was 2 or so, he'd get out a yogurt, eat it, then toss both the
container and the spoon in the trash. It took us weeks to figure out
where all our spoons were disappearing to loL! Graham crackers with
PB, or Nutella, or assorted jams and jellies are fun - we keep it
all within DS' range (with step stool as needed) so he can grab some
at will pretty much. We'll also hard boil a dozen eggs up at once
and have them available for snacking for a few days. Then again
there are times DS has pulled out a container of cold, no sauce,
pasta and grabbed a fork and that was his snack. Didn't even want us
to heat it up any. It's kind of funny I guess but we have a big bowl
of assorted candy bars sitting out and DS requested cheese shapes
for a snack yesterday. Last Friday at the ballpark (rain delay then
cancelled long story) DS asked for some cotton candy (a friend's DD
got some and he thought it was cool that they came right to the
seats with it). He ate about 1/3, decided it didn't taste so very
good and went back to eating his hot dog. (BTW their little DD, who
has fairly regulated food choices, wouldn't part with that cotton
candy for anything until she ate it right down to the paper cone).