Kids & Healthy Food

(From Facebook archives April 2012)

One of my greatest achievements as a parent has been to incorporate healthy foods into the diets of my children on a daily basis. My kids love their daily smoothies with bananas, blueberries, blackberries, oranges, carrots, chia seeds, apples, kale powder and spinach in it. They have vegetables blended or added into their daily meals. They get excited about throwing away or donating to others any candy they receive from others at holidays. They love their dinosaur patties made with spinach and broccoli. They love lentil soup, squash and cauliflower. They love a variety of foods across the ethnic spectrum. My kids have only been at a drive thru a couple of times, and only to Jimmy Johns, and that was a couple of years ago. The only soda Sophia has had was in a Shirley Temple on two separate occasions. I am excited my children are growing up on superfoods and they see Casie and I working out on a daily basis. All it takes is starting early on with their daily food intake. Making eating vegetables fun or "hiding it" in their foods is easy. A blender takes any of the vegetables we want them to have into a puree that can be added to make any sauce to be added to pasta, rice or on it's own and it tastes great. I can't believe we went so long without our Vitamix blender. I use it 2-4 times per day. My kids see me in front of the blender making their meals more than in front of the stove. The only thing we need the stove is for boiling water for pasta. I only have so much time to influence their eating behavior. I have the largest control of what goes into their bodies now than ever. I am so glad Casie and I are on board with this. I am jealous I wasn't brought up on the dietary consumption that my children are. I also love that the kids are going to be attending a school that actually makes an attempt to provide high quality menus at school.