Ways to Make Your Kids Become Foodies
- rstinson10
- Mar 29
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 13
Our children are 13, 11, 9 and 7 and they are foodies. They enjoy things like sushi, spicy foods, guacamole and pizza with anchovies on it. My 9 year old prefers making smoothies in the blender as a snack instead of eating crackers and she eats bowls of fruit for dessert.
As a parents, I know It can be hard to get kids to eat their meals or trying new foods.
Healthy eating is an important life skill. Children and adults both benefit from healthy food options and having the knowledge to properly prepare meals. Here are some ways we do it in our house:
We have a house rule that eating their meal is required. If it is new food or something they don't like, the children need to eat at least a polite bite to try it.
We have designated meal times and snack times. This keeps them from "grazing" or going too long for meals. Click to see more info on making a daily schedule.
We visit farms often and buy from their farm stand. It is important for our children to know and see where food comes from. It is also important to support small businesses.
We expose them to different foods often. Think about how it feels when you visit a festival or theme park. It is fun to try the special snacks or cuisine there. We do that for our children too. This includes giving them sweet foods like a churros at the Mexican restaurant, mochi and kettle corn. There are many different pasta sauces to have with spaghetti instead of traditional red sauce. Chicken nuggets can taste amazing when paired with buffalo sauce or BBQ sauce instead of the usual catsup. Exposing them to different foods also prevents them from becoming bored with the same food that is provided to them.
We avoid foods with that use sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or which have a high amount of salt. Foods that have these (or similar) ingredients do not have natural flavoring and these ingredients are being used to cover up the dull, bland, and sometimes bad flavor of pre-made ultra-processed foods. If you take out the salt from most crackers or chips, you would find that they taste like cardboard: which is because they are probably made with cardboard ("cellulose" or other types of ingredients).
We made food from scratch most of the time. At least half of our meals are made from actual raw ingredients. This makes it so that our kids become accustomed to and enjoy natural flavors, rather than artificial ones.
We limit juice and seltzer water. We do not allow our kids to drink soda.
We try different ways to serve vegetables. Cauliflower, cucumber and broccolini are underrated veggies that are great options to add to a meal. Broccoli actually tastes really good when it is mixed in mac and cheese. Cooked carrots have a different taste than raw carrots.
We make family meals a priority
We try not to schedule too many evening activities so we can eat dinner together as a family. It is important for us connect at the end of the day. We talk at the table and chat about our day. Often we play a game like "Taboo", read trivia cards, or read a book to the children. Having family meals is also an opportunity to make sure the children are actually eating their meals and to reinforce healthy eating habits. As parents, we can model healthy eating since the kids are physically there watching us. We can also enforce dinner manners like not talking with your mouth full, not playing at the table and remembering to say "please" and "thank you".
We take our children to restaurants sometimes. We do not allow the children to play on screens at the table. We bring activities with us for the children to do while waiting for food. It is important for them to watch food get delivered, learn restaurant etiquette and try different foods we don't normally have at home. We have taken them to hibachi, which was a lot of fun. And if you want to take your children to a restaurant, consider sharing plates as a budget friendly option. Those portions can be quite large sometimes and it can make more sense to split the plate than buying something from the kids menu.
Home-Ec is an Important Life Skill
One benefit of homeschooling is that our children have access to a full kitchen. They can make a smoothie in the blender, put buffalo sauce on their chicken, drink ice cold water and have the time to sit and eat their meals. They can put fresh ground pepper on their meal. They can heat up their own favorite leftovers in the microwave. Healthy snacks like cheese, salami, fresh fruit and yogurt are available to them.
As homeschoolers, we are home more often than our public/ private school peers. We save money by eating at home and not using the drive- through as often. We have the time to dedicate to making chili from scratch, make our own coffee drinks and heat up chicken nuggets in the microwave. When you buy from a restarunt, you don't know the ingredients. The food might have ingredients you don't like or are allergic to.
We teach them portion control. Each of them are different ages so their plate will have a different amount of food on it. They need to know how to manage portions in a healthy way when they eat.
We teach the kids to cook. They watch us make the food, they help prepare meals, we talk about how you can tell when food is finished cooking, or how you know food is expired and ready to toss. We teach them food safety and handling. When they enter adulthood they will operate their lives based upon our eating examples (healthy ones).
We keep physical cookbooks in the house with photos. Yes, there are many recipes online and we use those as well. However, we try to limit screens and the dependence on them in our home.
We do not want our kids to aimlessly read blogs and Pinterest for recipes. With cookbooks, children have independence to freely look through the cook books and find recipes to make in a screen free way. They can help meal plan and make foods that they enjoy eating and take ownership over it. They are excited for the end result and it helps improve their self esteem.
If you are looking to buy some cookbooks for your home library, our favorites are ones that are "express", or "6 ingredients or less" or "basics/ how to cook" cookbooks. Many cookbooks, including ones "for kids" have many ingredients and cooking steps included. Chef authors also like to try and be creative with foods, which is fine if you like to experiment. However, if you are looking for a simple chicken soup recipe in many cookbooks available in stores, you may be disappointed and overwhelmed with the number of ingredients and steps involved.
Click to see more screen free boundaries.
This site is not monetized. Please share and follow us on FB.
