Involve the whole family in meal preparation, this includes cleanup. Let the family enjoy working together to prepare a healthy meal.
for Eat Healthy
Check out your cabinets! Pull out some food items that have nutritional labels and sit down as a family to review the serving sizes of each item. Have each person locate the serving size on one item and then use measuring cups to get a visual idea of how much food it actually is. Once you've done this, discuss how many servings of each food you normally eat. Is it 2 or 3 servings? More? Write down the number of servings you normally eat and go back to the label to figure out your intake of fat, fiber, sugar, etc. For example, if one serving contains 4 grams of fat, and you normally have 4 servings, that means the total intake of fat is (4 x 4) 16 grams of fat. You can do this activity with all the food items in your cabinet and refrigerator.
Decorate special water cups or bottles for the family (everyone gets his or her own bottle). Use markers, crayons, colored pencils, stickers, glitter and glue, or whatever you like. Rinse out or wash water cups as a family in the evening and let them air dry over night. Fill up your colorful water cup and enjoy water all day long.
For fun ask “where's dinner” meaning where shall we eat tonight?
It could be on the porch or the patio, on the stairs or the family room floor as if an indoor picnic.
Consideration of what types of food to be served is important. With chairs and blankets make a tent and pretend you are far far away and describe what it's like where you are and what "foods" you're having there. Ask questions like is it sandy, hot or cold, any animals lurking around?
- Rubio Family, Avon, IN
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Family’s Healthy Recipe Collection
Make your own family healthy-recipe book:
• Sit down as a family and look through magazines, cookbooks, or Web sites to find new healthy recipes.
• Take favorite family recipes and chance them to reduce fat, salt, and sugar content.
• Swap healthy recipes with relatives, friends and neighbors.
Combine all the recipes gathered into a notebook or a box. Get creative and decorate it with drawings, stickers, or glitter.
Decide as a family the # of vegetable servings everyone will have every day. The recommended amount varies depending on the organization. According to www.mypyramid.gov the range from children up to adult men is 1 ½ - 3 cups a day. Use this range as a guideline to determine your family's Veggie Challenge goal. This challenge will take menu planning, grocery store planning, and family time to help everyone achieve the goal of eating more veggies. This may mean having veggies at breakfast! Kids be creative and think of what veggies at breakfast might look like.
• Omelet with peppers and onions
• Tomato and cheese on whole wheat toast
• Egg and veggie burrito (tomato, salsa, peppers, onions, squash)
• ¾ cup of low-sodium vegetable juice
• Whole wheat bagel with low-fat cream cheese and cucumbers/tomatoes
Have family members make over their favorite meal recipe to add healthy ingredients or healthy preparation methods and pick a special night each week to present the “fave” meal. Maybe every Thursday night is “Favorite Meal Night” and you rotate as a family who's recipe/meal will be prepared, older kids can do the preparation and even serve the meal. Pick a meal time that works for the whole family.
Play a game of tag. The rules are that you must call out the name of a fruit or vegetable before sitting down to prevent being tagged, and you can't use any name that has already been called out. You may have to get creative (star fruit, kumquat, zucchini, jicama, pineapple, avocado, papaya) to avoid being tagged.
Have all family members identify their favorite fruit, draw pictures of them or write them down and make one list. Then, fill a bowl or basket with those fruits and make it a “family fruit bowl” and keep it on the table, counter or in the refrigerator. This way, everyone in the family will have easy access to their favorite fruit when they're looking for a snack.
Explore a little something different for a fun meal; add fresh cooked or canned pumpkin to your favorite pancake batter.
No, not that kind of pie, but pizza pie. Order your pizza with extra sauce, easy on the cheese, meat-free and with extra vegetables (broccoli, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, spinach, artichokes, etc.). Be creative. Some pizza parlors even offer a whole wheat crust.
Make your own food chart (plate guidelines). On a piece of paper, draw a large circle or trace a dinner plate, to represent a plate. Then draw lines through the plate to divide it into 4 equal pie-shaped sections. One-half (two of the sections) should be for fruit and vegetables. Draw and color some of your favorite fruit and vegetables in this section. One-quarter (one section) should be for starch and grains (rice, pasta, and bread). The last quarter should be for lean protein (nuts, fish, cheese, meat, and poultry). Once your chart/plate is complete, draw a few of your favorite foods in the places they belong.
Serve dinner using only measuring spoons and/or cups. This way everyone will be able to measure out the portions on their plates. It's a good way to become more aware of how much food you serve yourself and others. Did any amounts surprise you? Was it hard to measure any of the foods at the meal?
It's easy to add veggies! Fill your soups, stews, or chili with more vegetables by adding a bag of mixed frozen vegetables. You can even try pureeing vegetables so they'll blend in better - and you might not even know they're there. Add sprouts, cucumbers and tomatoes to sandwiches. Dip blanched (slightly cooked) or raw vegetables in hummus for a tasty snack.
Sit down as a family for breakfast and measure out the cereal poured into each person's bowl. Before measuring, guess how many servings are in your bowl. Remember the recommended amount of cereal flakes (1 serving) is 1 cup - about the size of an average fist.
Pick a fresh or frozen fruit to add to cereal, pancakes or oatmeal and sneak some color in today.
Pick a new or different fresh or frozen vegetable and add to spaghetti sauce, casseroles, or slower-cooker/crock pot dishes.
See how much color you can sneak into your next meal.
Judge new, rarely- or never-before-tasted foods (fruits, vegetables, healthy recipes, other healthy foods) by choosing 3 similar types of food and have family members rank them 1 for the best, 2 for good, and 3 for not as good. Count up all of the points for each food. The food with the most points is now the new “Food Idol” in your home for the week.
- Martin Family, Easley, SC
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Planning a Physical Activity Based Birthday Party (not just for kids, grown-up birthday's can be celebrated with physical activity too)
• goodie bags contain jump ropes, rubber balls, Frisbees
• using kids's or grown-ups favorite character as a means of playing a game of tag, run through a sprinkler, play in a pool or at a play ground, play in the snow or sledding, bike rides, relay races
• serve a healthy meal (offer salads, fruit and vegetables, veggie pizza w/easy cheese, whole wheat pasta w/sauce, decorate your own lean hamburgers (or turkey) use whole wheat buns and have lots of toppings lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, avocado, cucumbers, spinach leaves), or have healthy snacks available and then enjoy the cake. Low fat cake/dessert options, low fat cupcakes (made w/apple sauce instead of oil), angel food cake, low fat yellow cake with fresh fruit, fresh fruit parfaits
Create a portion-size reminder card. Use some card stock or heavier paper and draw the following portions. Pictures and numbers will help to remind you of serving sizes. For example:
3 oz. serving of meat, fish or poultry is about the size of a deck of cards
1 ½ oz. of cheese is the size of 4 stacked dice
1 cup of cereal or a baked potato is about the size of an average fist (adult)
Draw these items on your card and keep it handy at meal time.
Plan a small and personal field trip with your child somewhere you've both never been - for example, an aviation museum at the airport, the race track, a working dairy farm, or take a tour of your city's municipal water system. Pack a healthy sack lunch and enjoy the day together.
Host a salad potluck in your own home. Put out bowls of healthy salad ingredients:
• chopped vegetables - onions, green or red peppers
• romaine
• cabbage
• sliced vegetables - cucumbers, beets
• garbanzo beans
• kidney beans
• sunflower seeds or other nuts
• shredded low fat cheese
Have family members build a salad from their favorite ingredients and experiment with one or two new toppings. Invite friends and neighbors to bring their own healthy salad versions and share your combinations.
Work and school during the week, so as a way to connect as a family early in the weekend try a fun Saturday in the park routine...pack a picnic breakfast (healthy food only!) and together as a family walk or ride bikes to the local park...at the park play, eat breakfast and enjoy this special time together...the park is usually not very busy early in the morning which adds to the fun! It is a great way to spend time together before busy weekend schedules and chores begin.
- Diamond Family, Raleigh, NC
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Scavenger Hunt in the Grocery Aisles
Have a grocery-store scavenger hunt. As you shop, find some of your favorite foods and check to see which items have 3 or more grams of fiber and less than 5 grams of sugar per serving. Those are the foods to gather in your cart. Challenge each other to find the most family favorites that meet this fiber and sugar amount.
Create a list of everyone in the family's favorite snacks, and modify the “not-so-good” choices as a family to make them a healthy snack
• plan for 1-2 healthy snacks per day
• have options (a variety) of foods available to make snacks
• prepare snacks ahead of time and divide into appropriate portion bags or containers
• create a grocery list that includes healthy snack ingredients for the entire week
Have everyone in the family grab their favorite sugar sweetened drinks or snack food and read the label to find out how much sugar is in a serving of each. Then, using a measuring spoon put the amount of sugar into a zip lock bag. (Hint: 4 grams of sugar = 1 teaspoon.) Mark each bag with the name of the drink/food and leave it out on the counter to remind everyone of just how much sugar they're getting each time they pour a glass of that beverage or grab a handful of that snack.
Conduct your own family taste test. Make a meal you'd normally eat, but skip the salt, added sugar, or fat (substitute skim milk for whole or 2% milk; put 1/3 less sugar than what is called for; use low-fat cheese; use reduced-salt broth, etc.). Taste each dish to see if you can tell the difference. Use your taste buds to rate each dish.
Another option would be to serve a few things that have been altered (reduced fat or reduced sodium) and see if family members can determine which foods are “healthier” choices.
