It’s that time of year again for resolutions. The last few years, it has always been the same, to eat a bit healthier. That has actually been an ongoing thing for many years. Slowly but surely, a healthier eating style has replaced the awful, junky, way of eating that dominated my 20’s.
Items that no longer occupy my cabinets are chips, sugary cereals, candy or Little Debbie snacks. The chips were easy to get rid of. I seriously can’t stop eating them if I have a bag, so I just make sure I don’t have them in the house. I replaced chips with other crunchy things like toasted pitas and hummus, or corn chips and guacamole, nuts, and crackers with cheese. Pretty easy, though possibly more expensive. Cereals have been replaced with waffles. We have whole-grain waffles for breakfast almost every morning. My son doesn’t even want a drop of syrup, just some smart-balance spread. I try to get him to eat a yogurt with it, but usually just manage a glass of milk. Lila likes eggs, but not Paul.
Now my eating dilemmas have to do with my son Paul. Four years old and never met a vegetable he liked. I just bought Jessica Seinfield’s Deceptively Delicious, but after trying a few recipes, don’t see this as a long-term solution. Though we discovered he will eat the mashed sweet potatoes I prepared and froze according to DD. I know many many people have trouble getting their preschoolers to eat healthy choices. The boy would eat pasta and cheese the rest of his life without complaint. Or fish sticks with ketchup.
It’s very disappointing after I have prepared a healthy, delicious meal and have him refuse it and ask for noodles. Yesterday I made a wonderful chicken pot pie with carrots and potatoes, but he would only take his “one bite” as is the rule in the house, he has to try everything, but we won’t force him to finish it. I asked him how it was as he is gulping his juice after his taste, and he tearfully tells me, “not good”. Meanwhile, the rest of the family is devouring it, in fact we finished off the whole thing by the end of the night. Paul had peanut-butter and jelly.
My husband and I love good food. I get excited about food, and eating, and even cooking when I’m not too stressed. In fact I have two new cookbooks on the way from amazon. I can’t eat fish sticks and macaroni and cheese for dinner every night. But I hate preparing one meal for us and another meal for Paul.
How have others survived this?