There is a large movement towards a healthier nation, and in the face of rising obesity rates, especially among children, it is becoming even more important to focus on healthy eating. A child's eating habits, and even food preferences, start at home. As a result, it is absolutely crucial to offer a variety of healthy foods to your children in appetizing ways.
Many parents fall into the trap of take-out and convenience foods. Pre-made dinners may be simple to heat up and serve, but they rarely offer as much nutritional value as a home-made dinner made with real food. The most common reason that people resort to convenience foods is because they don't feel they have time to prepare a full meal, so the pre-made option is simply easier. However, with a bit of planning, healthy family meals can be a snap to make at home. Many healthy meals can even be made in the time it takes to have a pizza delivered or go pick up burgers and fries.
The first step to serving healthy family meals is planning. If you don't have the ingredients available for a healthy meal, you certainly aren't going to make it. For the first week, pick out two or three meals that the family would enjoy and add the ingredients you will need to your shopping list. Starting out small, with only a few meals each week, is a great way to get used to cooking at home slowly, without being overwhelmed.
Meals can either be made completely when they are going to be served, ingredients like veggies can be prepared ahead of time, or you can completely make a meal ahead of time and just heat it up when you are ready. Meals that freeze well can be made in large quantities, like several pans of lasagna at one time. When you have an hour or two of free time, make up several pans and put them in the freezer. When you're looking for an easy way to have a home-cooked meal, just pop a tray out and heat it up for dinner.
Almost any meal can be made a bit healthier, often by adding a few vegetables or swapping out one ingredient for another. For example, in a lasagna, you can switch out sliced eggplant or zucchini for the noodles and add in extra vegetables when you are assembling the lasagna, such as chopped spinach or shredded carrots.
Healthy family meals don't need to be something of fairy tales. If you take into consideration what your family really enjoys, you can likely implement a healthy menu for your home with little or no complaining. By planning your meals ahead of time, and slowly increasing the number of homemade meals your family eats each week, eating healthy can be downright enjoyable.
