healthy eating

Curing Picky Eater Syndrome: Hand over some meal planning to your new junior sous chef

kid chef

Cooking with your kids is one of the best ways to get them to eat healthy real food, and a great way to boost their excitement is by involving them in meal planning. 

 

When children can take ownership of breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks, they tend to really think about what they’ll be eating. When you first start giving your children a voice in meal planning they may provide outlandish ideas such as cheeseburgers with cookies for buns or string cheese for every meal, but you can curb this by showing them how you do your own meal planning, and what you take into account (nutrition, budgets, what’s on hand) so they understand how meal plans work. And of course, do your best to make meal planning fun!

 

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Feeding Your Kids Fair Food

At a gathering that celebrates deep fried SPAM curds and advertises 40 “new foods” in 2012, the Minnesota State Fair is culinary overload at its most base level. Ever since I was a boy it’s the fair food that draws me back just as much as climbing on the tractors, visiting the animal barns, or seeing the crop art in the Ag/Hort building. Going off to college I stayed in Minneapolis and attended the UofM, which was a short bike ride from the fairgrounds, and I came to the realization that now on my own I was free to eat as much food at the fair as I wanted without the supervision of a mindful parent. Awesome!

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Homework Never Tasted So Good!

Being a student again can be a humbling and invigorating experience. It's a fact that there will always be more to learn. This is true for all subjects and especially for anything food and cooking related....or at least its true for me. There are always new ingredients, techniques, tools and not to mention endless and conflicting information about food politics. Now that I have completely overcomplicated the subject of cooking, let's break it back down.

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The Switch to a Cleaner Dirty Dozen

As the mother of two small children (age 2 ½ and 6 months), I try my best to make healthy eating choices every day. I make my own baby food (lots easier than it sounds and very cost-effective), use as little pre-packaged/processed foods to make meals as I can, and avoid sugar and junk food whenever possible. That being said, I will admit that I used to roll my eyes at the word organic. I looked at the prices and didn’t really understand why I was paying sometimes more than twice the price for the “same” foods.

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Start the Year Right with Good Food Classes at Linden Hills Co-op

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Do you make New Year's Resolutions? If so, do you make the same ones each year? Are you still trying to shed those 20 pounds you've been resolving to lose since 1997? Me too.

Last year I resolved to learn a few new tricks: I made granola for the first time, a Kahlua-like drink, cassoulet, and a bunch of pork shoulders (my wife gets most of the credit for these). I started composting. I spent half a dozen days at Riverbend Farm to try to get a very small feel for organic farming. I even took a canning class at Linden Hills Co-op in Minneapolis.

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Give Up the Cell Phone

A few weeks ago, I declared June 26 "Signal Free Saturday," an opportunity to put down our cell phones, laptops, PDAs, and iPads and look our loved ones directly in the eye for the first time in weeks, months, or years. I was excited for the excuse to give my wife my full attention, rather than the usual 50 percent. I was excited to play with my kids without wondering if something more interesting was in my email. Work be damned, I was going to be free!

Only it turns out that giving up the phone is more complicated than that - or at least that's how it felt to me. Here's how it went:

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