Feeding your family healthy foods

[brachysira]

I feel like I am losing the battle.  My husband comes from a family of thin people who drink whole milk with each meal, buy Doritos, drink Coke, and have bacon for breakfast.  My side is riddled with high cholesterol and similar although everyone exercises a lot and follows rigidly healthy diets.  My 3 year-old decided at about 12 months old that she would never eat another vegetable and would limit her meat intake to processed varieties, and has never wavered.  She relies mostly on fruit, yogurt, and whole wheat toast, although I still make main dishes and vegetables and put them on her plate every meal.  My son is 17 months, and he's taken to tossing his veggies to the floor most of the time now too, and doesn't even always eat his fruit.  DH never eats fruit, only eats veggies if I put them on his plate, and eats one serving of most of the dishes I make and then fills up on candy bars and similar the rest of the evening when the kids are in bed.  Tonight we did not have snacks in the house.  I made a healthy hearty chicken tortilla soup and served cheesy vegetables and blueberries as sides.  There were leftovers, but instead DH went to McDonalds and bought 6 nuggets, a quarter pounder, fries, and an apple pie--he was just like, well, I appreciate your meals but we don't have snacks so I'm going to get some.  I am just so tired of cooking when no one appreciates it.  I can't go around frying chickens and grilling burgers all the time because my health won't stand for it, and I don't think my family should eat this way anyway.  When I was cooking for one, I'd just have lean cuisines or salads most days.  It would be easier to just do that and let the kids eat their fruit and toast and tell DH to eat a burger on his way home from work...  Do you feel this kind of conflict?  How do you decide what to eat?

[lo95]

The struggle is real. If I have easy healthy foods on hand (bananas, Cuties, etc) DH will complain fhere are no snacks in the house. But when chips and pizza rolls are around no problem. I don't know the answer, but it stresses me because DD will be off formul soon and I feel like we eat badly as it is. Right now, purres are easy and healthy, but that's coming to an end fast.

[gwapes]

H is kind of that way. He generally does not like healthy options. I got tired of that battle so I just make what I make and if he doesn't eat it, whatever, not my problem. My only problem is when I work at night and he is in charge of dinner. He often makes him and DS mac and cheese and hot dogs. :/

I worry more about what DS is eating, so I started making us smoothies while H is at work. That way I know DS is getting a good amount of fruit and vegetables, at least.

[luvboston]

We have a rule in our house if you don't eat what's on your plate you don't eat. It's is not ok too eat poorly, my husband learned his lesson very quickly when he got written up by his company Doctor. Now he is forced to eat healthy and gets where I am coming from. You need to keep giving them the good stuff and there tastes will eventually change. The worst thing you can do is give in. But also don't yourself making something complicated. We eat a lot of baked chicken different ways.

[icequeen]

Feb 20, 2016 15:38:28 GMT -5 luvboston said:

We have a rule in our house if you don't eat what's on your plate you don't eat. It's is not ok too eat poorly, my husband learned his lesson very quickly when he got written up by his company Doctor. Now he is forced to eat healthy and gets where I am coming from. You need to keep giving them the good stuff and there tastes will eventually change. The worst thing you can do is give in. But also don't yourself making something complicated. We eat a lot of baked chicken different ways.

Exactly.

[brachysira]

I buy the same snacks forevermorgan,--and even limit Goldfish. Kids snack on whole wheat tortillas, carrots, and healthy dry cereal. But I also sometimes buy applesauce and yogurt pouches, and I tend to buy Fiber One bars, which are just cookies, and sometimes we all eat those. DH sometimes shops and he buys tons of junk but he hides it and usually the kids don't get much of it. It's just so frustrating that I make these main dishes because DH wants them and it seems right to feed the kids actual meals, but then no one really gets excited or chows down. I was baby-sitting, and as I arrived, the girls were served chicken and brown rice. And they didn't eat it, but they didn't complain or ask for snacks--they just played and drank some water...and these girls are about 1/2 the weight of my similarly-aged children... My children sit in boosters and it's not that easy to move in and out of them, so I guess maybe that contributes to their actual eating of the foods they like whereas these girls didn't even bother sitting down. Not sure what insight this provides...except that somehow these kids do not seem to be constantly hungry, which is something I need to solve at my house.