Fall in Love with Healthy!

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I feel that one of the most important messages you can send your children is to love feeling good and being healthy.  For me, this translates to feeding them healthy, home cooked whole food meals (MOST of the time; I am not shooting for perfect!).  We have very little processed foods in our home, no candy, chips, sodas, juice, sugar snacks, etc.  We have very little cereals (other than granola).  These things do make an appearance (except for the soda, never soda), but it is on a very limited basis. Most of the junk my kids eat is done out of my home.  Your children will eat what you eat, and what you provide for them.

If cooking from scratch every day feels overwhelming or unrealistic given your schedule, then I would encourage you to start with one day of the week to dedicate to cooking and eating whole foods with your family.  Breakfast is a very important meal, and one that is often overlooked or not given the attention it deserves given most families busy mornings.  One thing I do to ensure that my children eat a healthy nourishing breakfast before heading off to school is to make a huge batch of pancakes, waffles or muffins on Sunday. Freeze them in small portions, and then throughout the week you can just pull a muffin out of the freezer and defrost it, or pull a pancake/waffle out of the freezer and heat it in the toaster. Pair it with some fruit, and you have an awesome whole food breakfast that will start their day off right.

You can find the recipe I use for pancakes here.  It is really simple, and there is no excuse to not have made from scratch pancakes from now on!  Need some other ideas for a healthy, nourishing breakfast for your kids before school?  Try some of the ideas below:

  • yogurt with fruit, nut butter & granola
  • whole wheat muffins like the ones here
  • oatmeal with fruit, honey and granola
  • apple slices or banana with nut butter
  • whole wheat waffles like these (leave out the blueberries if you want)
  • overnight oats

Enjoy your day, and remember, fill your body and your kid’s bodies every day with LOVE!

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