52 Healthy Eating Tips For Families
Diet changes can be overwhelming when you are just starting out. It can be confusing to know what to change, when, and how much. In fact, all the confusion and information can lead to paralysis, where you end up doing nothing at all. Eating healthy is so crucial to good health that you can’t afford to stand still. So we’ve put together some great easy-to-implement healthy eating tips for families.
Now, obviously, if you try to do all these at once, you will certainly fail. So, read through the list, and then just pick two. You can read more about that below.
- When you purchase ground beef, choose the 93% lean over the 85%.
- Buy 2% milk instead of whole milk.
- Hide the candy jar.
- Reduce the juice intake to one serving a day. Serve water instead.
- Keep a bowl of fresh whole fruit within easy reach throughout the day (ie. apples, bananas, plums etc.)
- Buy real cheddar cheese instead of Velveeta.
- Replace one soda a day with a bottle of water.
- Eat before you shop; never shop hungry.
Try one new vegetable with your kids.
- Try one new fruit with your kids.
- Eat at Subway instead of Mcdonalds.
- When eating out, order water instead of soda.
- Purchase bread that has at least 3 grams dietary fiber per slice.
- Purchase cereal with at least 6 grams dietary fiber per serving.
- Purchase ice cream with zero artificial ingredients.
- Replace regular bacon/ham with an uncured version (nitrate free)
- Swap white table sugar for sucanat.
- Replace white all purpose flour with half white and half whole wheat.
- Replace margarine with real, unsalted butter.
- Replace regular table syrup with grade A maple syrup.
- Purchase local honey.
- Drink decaf coffee instead of caffeinated .
- Replace one sugary snack with pretzels.
- Buy tuna packed in water instead of oil.
- Buy canned fruit packed in fruit juice instead of syrup.
- Buy frozen vegetables over canned versions.
- Make your own salad dressing. (Recipe for homemade Greek salad dressing)
- Buy green leaf or romaine lettuce over iceberg lettuce.
- Buy organic apples.
- Serve dessert in smaller dishes with smaller utensils.
- Roast your veggies and meat instead of frying.
- Use extra virgin olive oil for dressings.
- Make your own pasta marinara sauce.
- Eat more meals that require forks over knives. (Watch the film, “Forks Over Knives“, if you haven’t already.)
- Replace 1 red-meat with easy roasted salmon.
- Have an ‘unplugged’ (no TV) homemade dinner together once a week.
- Serve your kids a homemade sandwich and an apple instead of Lunchables.
- Eat a healthy breakfast.
- Make your own poptarts
- Make your own pancakes from scratch. (We make Oatmeal Pancakes straight from the blender!)
- Eat homemade oatmeal for breakfast. (Try our version of Flaxseed Oatmeal.)
- Buy frozen or fresh fruit over canned.
- Make your own cookie dough versus buying pre-made cookies.
- Bake only the cookies that you need and freeze the leftover dough for later.
- Forego morning doughnuts.
- Plan ahead and pack a lunch for work.
- Use fresh parmesan cheese instead of the stuff from the can.
- Buy canned/boxed tomatoes that have “no salt added.”
- Make your own large batch of homemade soup and freeze any leftovers.
- Buy yogurts with zero artificial ingredients.
- Make your own icing. (See our two favorite icing recipes.)
- Eat brown rice instead of white.
Just Pick Two
Take another look at this list, and simply pick two healthy eating tips that you can apply this week with your family. That’s it. Just two. Then, come back and tell us how it went!
Continue those two changes until they become commonplace…maybe that’s a month, maybe a bit longer. Then come back, and pick two more. It is amazing how just making small, simple changes to your diet can impact your health in a BIG way!
1 Comment
The Do's And Don'ts of Dieting With Kids | Proven Nutrition For Kids · June 17, 2014 at 11:59 am
[…] blood sugar than the prepackaged cookies and snacks. It’s much easier to incorporate some healthy eating tips than counting […]