Cheating your family into clean eating
Do you want to start with clean eating, but are you a lazy mom just like me? Prepare double meals because your family members don't want to join your new fit style, because they think it's expensive and time consuming. And it can be just one of those things that makes you quit half way. No way! So I tried cheating my family (all boys, so go figure) into clean eating. Yes, it's not fair. And yes, I should act like clean food is normal food. But when you have kids that consider licking the peanut butter off of their sandwiches breakfast, anything goes.
Protein powered meals
Study shows that eating protein-rich meals will cut down your carb cravings (aka: snack munchies). That is why I start the day with yogurt and granola, or with oats. This is my favorite breakfast recipe that my kids love too:
Banana oats porridge
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 portion of cut oats
1 cup of (non-dairy) milk
1 tablespoon of broken flax seeds
Cinnamon to taste
Add mashed bananas, oats and milk in bowl. Heat in microwave for 2 minutes at 700 watts. Stir through; add broken flax seeds and sprinkle with cinnamon.
I love this because it's got fruit, fibers, slow carbs, protein and all kinds of vitamins and minerals. It's sugar free and easy to make vegan (dairy free) too. I like to use almond milk for myself, but for the kids I use full-fat organic milk. They need that fat for their brain development!
In their lunch boxes, you could add a (cheese) omelette sandwich, or a hard-boiled egg. That means getting up early or doing the night before. Because I'm super lazy, I usually make a cream cheese and chicken sandwich for my eldest.
Fiber filled foods
It's tough getting the fibers in when your kids loves white bread. And fibers get really important when they start refusing to eat their veggies. Obstipation, hemorrhoids, IBS are just a few of the problems of not eating enough fibers.
Most of the time I buy fiber packed options like whole wheat anything. Bread, Pizza, Pancakes… Whole wheat pasta and brown rice are yucky in my opinion, so I choose fiber enriched pasta, spelt pasta or exotic rice combinations like wild rice or rice and multigrain.
But my secret weapon is broken flax seeds. These babies can be added to anything without being detected by a kid’s eye. A spoonful through their cereal or breakfast smoothie, a sprinkle on their sandwich, or as a garnish on their rice or pasta. No healthy taste, as my hubby and eldest son would put it, so super perfect for meeting their daily dosage of fibers!
Tutti frutti
Fruits are a healthy mom’s best friends. Almost everybody likes fruit, and what's not to like? Sweet, fragrant, full of flavor and with colors that scream, "Eat me!" The summer is the perfect time to indulge your family in all the fruits that are in season. Kids' summer favorites are strawberries, mangoes, peaches, cherries and melons. My boys, including the adult one, love it when I prepare any kind of fruit for them as a dessert. An apple peeled and sliced by mom just taste better, somehow.
On top of that, dried fruits are the perfect snack when you’re on the move. No preparing, no snack cups to clean afterwards! Dried mangos and cranberries are popular with the kids, dates and apricots are an adult favorite. Just toss the whole package in your (diaper) bag and you're good to go for a day out.
How do you get your family to embrace clean eating? Let me know in a comment below!
