Snack Time!

(this post is shared from my family blog, since it's on the topic of food...)

This is pretty much a topic all its own, but a friend of mine was looking for ideas to get her kids to eat better and I thought maybe there are mom's who read my blog looking for ideas too. I've got some links to articles, as well as my own thoughts. Definitely not a professional here, this is just what I think is best for my family. (and no, I am not the best example in the house, either)
I think the first thing you have to do is have good food and snacks in the house. On that same note, have very few treats in the house. (That doesn't include food storage. We have bags of chocolate and other chips, mixes for cookies, cakes and other treats, tubs of frosting, boxes of jello and pudding mixes, koolaid packets, things like that, but it isn't made yet so its not going to be eaten today.)

This article has 20 tips for healthier children's snacks.
Buy healthier options. Low fat, low sodium and whole wheat labels get my attention. Every ready-to-go drink I now buy for the kids is free of "high fructose corn syrup". We usually buy whole wheat or whole grain bread instead of white bread. Our family compromises with 1% milk. Burt grew up drinking whole and at some point switched to 2%. My parents switched from 2% to skim when I was 5. So we meet in the middle with 1%. Try to lower the fat in your milk. Your kids really will not notice unless you tell them. I'm not kidding. Try it and see what happens.
Spread out the food pyramid. Try to get produce in every meal. Bananas in cereal, a side dish of carrot sticks with lunch, snack on an apple, a veggie (or two!) for dinner. Since H takes his lunch, I ask him every morning which kind of produce he's taking, and I try to have three options in the house that I know he'll eat: bananas, apples, grapes, carrots. He gets another choice for a snack when he comes home. We also do a lot of calcium/protein snacks- gogurt, string cheese, slice cheese, crackers and cheese.
My niece and her family make a "new" dinner almost every Sunday. I think that's a great way to start changing your diets. Find new healthy meal options and just bring it on once a week. The kids will adjust and very soon you can have super meals every night. Cook healthier- bake or grill your meat instead of frying, use fresh produce (especially right now while you can get so many kinds), all those tips you see everywhere. You can buy healthy cookbooks but you can also sign up for Pillsbury and Kraft and all kinds of websites to email you free healthy meal ideas. If you're cooking your food at home, you know what you are putting in your food, and therefore into your body.
Here's a great article about eating out. It will probably surprise you! And here is the more complete list.

We don't eat out very often. Mostly because I hate spending the money when I know we have food in the house. However, those times when we're driving back and forth between home and grandparents, or we're just out and about a lot, sometimes we do have to stop and grab fast food. (You can also PACK food in a cooler, and *good* granola bars and fruit snacks travel very well!) Our family is pretty limited with fast food. Wendy's used to have a ham and cheese sandwich that H liked, (and we can get yogurt and oranges there too) but they don't offer it anymore. Now we stick to McDonalds. Its kinda funny how that works...we pull up and say to the kids: "ok, so, chicken, apples and chocolate milk?" "Yep." - place order - hand to kids - "Heeeey!!! I wanted root beer!" "Nope, you agreed to chocolate milk. I asked, remember?" "Ohhh......yeaahhh" annnnd now they have to drink that! *If I have to eat there I get the fruit & walnut salad.
Another tip that works really well in our house is you only get one. One gogurt. One apple. One cookie. That almost MAKES the kids eat a variety! It also requires us to have a variety of foods in the house.
And speaking of "rules" in our house, I started one to help my picky son eat more things and it sticks! You don't have to like everything we serve, but you have to eat as many bites as your age. This started when he was 4 so he had to take 4 bites of the meat he wasn't interested in. Now he'll start to whine about whichever food he isn't impressed with and I just remind him "we have a rule in our house..." and he stops complaining and will shovel down his required bites. (This rule is a bad rule when your MIL catches on and teasingly picks on you about how many bites YOU have to take...LOL!)
Another thing that has helped motivate my kids to make good food choices is this great little book/story on CD- The Body Machine, by Brite Music.
The story points out foods that don't help your body grow but also says its ok to have treats and junk food once in a while. When my kids resist a new healthy snack I'll remind them "its just like a Brite Bite!" like in the story. It also has an entire song about only having ONE treat and only AFTER meals. That's a big rule around here. They only get a treat after lunch and after dinner. We're talking, one packet of smarties, or one popsicle, or one lollipop, etc. The kids know this and don't push it. They pick which treat they want and that is that.
Anyway...these are some things that I do and that work in our family. Of course, many of these things have been standard procedure in our house for a while. But I hope that it helps someone out there looking for ideas, or even just reminds you of other good ideas. Thanks for reading! LOL!