Top Tips For Eating Healthily As A Family

While 50% of families in the US  try to follow a healthy diet, this can prove to be incredibly challenging. For example, you may be struggling to prepare healthy dishes due to the rising cost of groceries, or feel as though you are simply too busy to spend time in the kitchen. 

However, as the food that your family eats impacts not only your health and well-being, but also the development of your child’s future eating habits, it is something that you should make a priority moving forward.

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

With that in mind, here are some top tips for eating healthily as a family!

Plan your meals in advance. While you may have become something of a pro at pulling together meals based on whatever you have in the fridge, planning out your meals ahead of time is one of the easiest ways to stick to a healthy diet. This is because you can ensure that you are following a nutritionally balanced diet, which includes your five a day of fruit and vegetables. 

Meal planning also allows you to prep meals for the following week during any downtime, so that you don’t have to cook from scratch each evening. This saves you a great deal of time and means you do not have an excuse to get takeout. 

Buy healthier snacks. Snacking is not something that should be demonized, even when you are trying to stick to a healthier diet. After all, snacks can help you (and your children) stay fuller for longer, while also combating an energy slump between meals. However, you can ensure that you’re staying on track by switching to healthier versions of your go-to snacks, such as low sugar popsicles. This way, you’re satisfying your cravings without consuming too much sugar.

Visit local food markets. One way in which you can make shopping for healthy food a little cheaper is by visiting local markets to pick up fruit, veg and other staples. This allows you to support small businesses while also avoiding the additional charges that are added to the cost of produce bought at supermarkets and chain stores. In addition to this, groceries bought from the market tend to be fresher, which means that they are nutrient-rich. 

Cook a wide variety of foods. One of the main reasons why people perceive healthy food to be ‘boring’ is that they envisage the food you eat to be the same every single day. Fortunately, this does not have to be the case. You can follow a widely varied diet and still be healthy, especially if you prioritize whole foods. If you’re not sure how to add variation to your diet, try to cook food from a different country once every week. For example, you could make your own pizzas one Friday and curry the next. 

Encourage your children to get involved. Finding ways to get your children involved in planning or preparing meals will also make it easier to eat healthily as a family. This is because they will then be much more excited about the food on their plate, while also learning some new skills along the way. This also provides you with an opportunity to discuss in more detail the importance of eating healthily, and how these meals help them stay fit and strong. 

Find fun ways to incorporate fruit and vegetables into your meals. A recent and surprising study found that nearly half of US children do not eat vegetables on a daily basis. This is something that clearly needs to change, especially when they play such a key role in promoting our health and well-being. Fortunately, there are a few ways in which you can start incorporating more fruit and veggies into their diet, even if this is a food group they are reluctant to eat. For example, you can add blended veggies to sauces, so that children eat vegetables without realising that they are doing so. On a similar note, pureed fruit can be added to sweet dishes. 

Final thoughts. Making sure that you follow a healthy diet will bring forth a range of benefits for your family, especially when it comes to your overall health. However, this can be challenging in itself. Fortunately, there are many steps that you can take to make eating healthily as a family a lot easier, from finding healthier variations of your favorite snacks to incorporating more fruit and vegetables into your diet. Remember, the habits you instill in your children now will carry them into adulthood!