Getting Your Kids to Eat Healthy

I, like everyone else in the world, am a huge believer in making sure kids get the proper nutrition.  Nothing is more sad than kids living in a country that can provide everything they need, yet they still aren't getting the proper nutrition.  Getting your kids to eat the right food can be a battle, but trust me it's a battle worth fighting for as a parent. 

Vitamins
Pick a multivitamin for your child.  It can be chewable, though as they get old enough to swallow pills, the pill form is preferable.  I'll admit I hate swallowing pills, so even I take adult gummy vitamins.  You'd be surprised how much better they taste than those chalky chewable ones you had as a kid.  You don't have to worry about getting your child 300% of their daily vitamin a intake, you just need to find something that has about 100% of the basic vitamins and minerals.  If your child particularly hates milk or has low iron you might consider one with more calcium or iron, but otherwise 100% across the board is a good start. 

Sugar
Cut it out of your child's diet.  There is no reason you need to feed your child anything with sugar added to it.  They get enough natural sugars from the fruits that they eat.  Cut out the juice.  Children should only have about 4oz worth of juice in a day.  Try drinks like water and milk instead.  If you want a special treat, try carbonated water with your kids.  Juices fill kids up with sugars instead of eating the proper food and don't give the kids the proper nutrition that they need. Besides that, most juices or worse juice drinks can have up to 16 grams of sugar in that one little serving. 

Food
Feed them the food you want them to eat.  Stock the house with the good, nutritious foods they should be eating instead of fatty snacks.  You might have to play the waiting game but eventually they are going to get hungry enough to want to eat the meals you are providing.  Let them go to the store with you and pick veggies and fruits that they want to try and eat.  Make food fun!  There are tons of websites dedicated to turning healthy snacks into cute looking things that your children will want to eat.  Have your children help cook with you, they might be more willing to eat food that they made themselves. 

Lead by Example
Flashbacks to that smoking commercial that aired in the U.S. in the early 90's where the kid says "I learned it from you!"  Set a good example for your kids.  If you are drinking milk with dinner, your kids are going to be more likely to want to drink milk too.  Your kids idolize you and watch you more than you might think, so don't let them catch you with a bag of chips munch raw veggies instead.  Do fun, family activities that gets everyone getting some exercise.  Set good habits now so when your children are in school and influenced by others, they still choose to eat right and make the right choices. 

Reasons and tips to make a roast

For some reason a lot of new cooks are afraid of making a roast.  I'll admit once upon a time I was one of those cooks.  All of my first meals were terribly overcooked in fear of serving raw food (still managed to serve some raw meals) and I never went near anything like a pork roast or a whole chicken because those things seemed advanced.  I left those meals to my parents to make when I'd visit home.

Here is the myth busted on roasts, they are basically the easiest meal to make.  All you do is season them, stick the meat in the oven and take it out after a couple hours.  Throw in a couple quick sides like peas and rolls and you're done.  It looks like you spent hours making an amazing meal but in reality you maybe spent 20 minutes actually standing in the kitchen cooking and the rest of the time you let the oven do the work. 

The price is usually reasonable too, I wait for a buy one get one free meat sale at my grocery store  then stock up on meat, and store it in the freezer until I'm ready to use it. Even if it's not on sale, the roasts are normally pretty reasonable for how impressive the meal will look especially if you are entertaining. 

A few tips:

• Time and temperature: Different roasts need to be cooked to different temperatures.  My advice is search online for the type of meat you have for recipes and even if you don't use the recipe it will have how long and the temperature the roast will need to go in the oven.  Use a meat thermometer to test the temperature of your roast to make sure it has come to Temp.  A good meat thermometer will even have what temperatures all of the different types of meat should come to before they are done. 

• Chickens and turkeys:  Clean them out first!  They have organs stuffed inside of them when your buy the birds.  Some people use these parts to make gravy.  It doesn't matter if you're that type of person or not, you need to remove those parts before the bird goes in the oven.  Unless they are frozen inside, they should pull right out.  I know, gross, but suck it up or put on a pair of gloves it will be worth it in the end. 

• Resting the meat: Resting just means when you pull your beautiful roast out of the oven, let it sit for a few minutes before you cut it.  I suggest setting it on a wood cutting board, tenting it with foil and letting it sit for 15 minutes before you cut into it.  If you cut the roast before you let it rest, all of the juicy goodness will run out on your cutting board and your meat will be dry. 

• Seasoning: Now this is just a basic idea, my seasoning and how much changes from roast to roast, but this will give you a good start to your first roast.  I use garlic, sea salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning on almost every roast I do.  If I want a spicier flavor I might add red pepper flakes, chili powder or Cayenne pepper. 

There you go!  Hopefully any anxiety over making a roast is gone and you're ready to try one.  Remember it might take a couple tries to get right taste you're going for, but it's a process. 

There is a myth that cooking a meal such as a roast for a man you are interested in marrying might actually make him propose.  The reason?  He sees you not as a girlfriend but more like wife/mother material because you made that traditional, complicated meal.  What he doesn't know was it hardly took any time at all!