I am a list person. I love lists of all kinds. My list app for sure gets the most use out of all the rest of my smart phone apps. There will never be a list too long or too short for me. I embrace them all.

I escpially love reading lists of things and ways to become a better person –

10 Ways To Maximise Your Time – Totally
8 Ways to Be Happy Everyday – Sure
5 Ways to Start Your Day Off Right – You Bettcha
10 Ways to Organize Your Home Once and For All – Been There

The problem with these lists is that I read them all and then I almost immediately forget them. Nothing stays will me anymore, especially not 10 things I need to do to make me a better person [unless the number one thing is to drink a glass a wine a night and then I would totally remember].

But I wanted to do a post on tips that I have learned and practice in my day to day life on raising a healthy eater. Something more then just recipes of yummy food. A post that brings healthy food and healthy practices together.

Well, that post is going to turn into 8 posts.

We are going to have 1 tip on how to raise a healthy eater every week for 8 weeks. That way we can work on only one tip and nothing more. 1 tip is about as much as I can hold in my brain anyway. We will put it into practice and see how it goes. Some of these tips you are already going to be a rockstar at, some may take a little more practice. I already know I have to work on a couple that I tend to slack off on but I know are super important for my little one.

Tip #1

Try Try Try Try Try AGAIN

It can take a kid up to 15 tries before they decide if they like a certain food or not. That’s a lot of different opportunities for you to present the food and have them push it away, which can be frustrating! But don’t give up. Just because they didn’t like it the first time, doesn’t mean that a week or month later that item won’t be their new favorite food.

Different ways to present the same food item:

  • Incorporate that food into different dishes
  • Cook the food differently – steamed, baked, roasted, pureed, pan fried
  • Add different spices or herbs to it
  • Serve with a dip or sauce you know they love
  • If it is a vegetable, make it into a soup by pureeing and adding cream to it
  • Vegetable and Fruits can almost always go into a smoothie

Action plan for the week

  1. Pick one or two items that your kiddo doesn’t like and cook them in a different way. Serve them at different meals so they are not forced to eat two things they don’t like at one siting.
  2. Be enthusiastic and smile while serving it to them.
  3. Eat it yourself.

How did it go? Did they eat either one of the foods? If not, don’t give up. The goal here is to just keep trying.

Just keep smiling and trying.