Please advise! Ill too much - what are your super-healthy family food ideas?

[sunnyeastermorning]

Before I had the kids I was really really rarely ill - several winters without colds, strong, fairly fit etc. etc.

Now it feels as if I succumb to everything, and the children and DH (though not as feeble as me) don't seem to fight things off as I think they should.

So I want to spend this half term on a real super-healthy-eating drive, and I need ideas.

Where we're starting from: 2-cook family of 5 (kids 8, 6, 3), don't really buy any 'ready meal' type stuff, but do buy bread, sausages, pasta, pesto, yoghurt - that sort of 'made' stuff.

Weekdays:

Breakfast: rotates between muesli, porridge (with fruit), and boiled eggs and toast

Lunch: not going to worry about weekday lunches (kids at school; DH and I either eat leftovers/toast/fruit at home, or something out)

Dinner: quite often cook twice, and am bored to tears of the stuff we generally eat - it's generally some sort of stew or curry (meat/ lentil/ beans/sausages) with potatoes/brown rice/white rice (if in massive hurry), with 2 green vegetables (large portions); pasta pesto once a week; stir fry. Then fruit, and sometimes natural yoghurt; cake or home made if we've got it (varies - maybe twice a week)

Weekend: all in for most meals. Want easy low-stress low-mess lunches, happy to cook more for dinner (often with aim of generating leftovers to be eaten up during the week)

Food fusses:
DS1 won't eat fish or lamb, and objects to anything other than chicken breast or beef mince. Could eat a whole head of broccoli, loves beans, lentils etc. Big eater.
DD not such a big eater. Not keen on fish either. Just eats less than DSs, so I'd like to make sure that what she does eat 'counts'
DS2 human dustbin
DH and me: mostly veggie, but really like delicious meat and fish. I don't think pasta is a food, but the rest love it.

Ideas, please! Budget not really an issue, but time/mess/faff is.

Marking.

Your diet sounds pretty good to me. I am interested to see your responses as I would be interested in doing this. We have i kid you not 6 months of illness. Even with 4 dcs thats excessive!! Just tecovering from tonsilitis as we speak.

How about soup can get loads of veggies in there?

Marking place. I have started taking Berocca every day and back on the spa tone (iron supplement). These seem to help with energy levels but not snot avoidance!

I love this Jamie Oliver veg chilli recipe. The roasted sweet potato in it makes it divine. I serve with guacamole and tortilla chips. It is quite spicy so I miss out the cayenne.

It's the kind of this I do when I'm feeling unhealthy but am sick of salads.

I second the jo veg chillie its divine. Adds that to shopping list

maroonedwithfour how I sympathise! DS had two (separate) bouts of tonsillitis earlier this year - I just think we're all run down and I want to try to change that. Maybe vitamin pills are part of the answer!

Veggie chilli looks great: will squirrel that

Soup: that's another of DS's hates, though I'm going to work on it. We'd need to have it as an 'extra' though, as I don't want to make a meal of it with loads of bread and cheese (firm favourites as they are).

I don't think our diet is bad either - but it's very very clearly not good enough! I guess I'm hoping for some super-food amazingness from someone!

I'd try some supplements, thats the path were going down. Would ds do soup thats more bulky, just had a look on line at JO and he does a chicken soup which is more chicken snd veg but the whole chicken cooked with veg (so you get the bone goodness??) its not sloppy iyswim.

Dd1 won't eat fish unless its the fingered/battered type. I feel guilty giving her ff when we're having salmon, fish pie etc so sometimes give her chicken but then shes not getting any fishy goodness. I might just give into rickets

If you are looking at supplements (I agree your diet doesn't look bad) then a good probiotic is probably the best plan to boost immunity.

Italian wedding soup is brill you can put loads in it and freeze portions for in the week.

Why not do your own fish fingers. If you are having salmon just bread it and fry - if you feel guilty dd can have salmon fish fingers, the rest of you can have goujons

soup and fish... I will work on it, but only once I'm feeling better/ stronger/ have less on. It's too dispiriting to cook much stuff that the children complain about/won't eat, and DH is away for much of the next 2 weeks too.

Have been digging around online and found various places with ideas I might try:
here
after swimming snack
vegetable-ish ice lollies!
carrot smoothie
lots of what look like good tea ideas

Those links are great! And the jo chilli looks good too.

If I feel we're nutritionally lacking I usually opt for stir fry, aubergine/ courgette parmigiana, courgette spaghetti, cauliflower rice with veg and chickpea curry, mashed swede and carrot with broccoli and portion of meat. Basically I eschew carbs at dinner at replace with a greater quantity of veg. It means there are four or five portions of veg in one meal. Plus porridge with blueberries/ raspberries for breakfast, and a veg omelette or soup for lunch. Takes you up to ten or more veg/ fruit a day, with all colours represented.

Would the soup eater eat a noodle soup / laksa type thing? That way it's a full meal too.

If we have soup as a main meal, I like to do something interesting on the side (sweetcorn fritters or nachos with lots of fresh vege/fruit in the form of salsa or guacamole), or follow it with fruit crumble.

Dhal is good, especially if you serve it with lots of 'bits' in the form of salads, chutney etc.

I also agree with the others that your diet looks good.

Another idea is soups made of pulses (lentil soup / chickpea soup) or butter beans in the oven with lots of vegetables. You can also make just roast vegetables in the oven, get them ready, and then add some slices of halloumi on top (at the end) which you grill. You eat that with some cheese & a bread & it's a fine main meal. Generally any vegetable or pulse-based dishes are healthy.

But do your kids eat this sort of thing If so congratulations!!! Mine wouldn't touch them so I make this sort of thing for DH & I only.

Yes - generally enthusiastic eaters of weird and wonderful noodles and pulses. It's hard to get spicing right to suit both adults and children, but so long as it's bland, they like it.

There used to be a 10 a day thread here, all about healthy eating stuff - has it gone? don't seem to have seen it for years... just the sort of thing I need right now.

Think I'm going to go back to getting a Riverford box; have fallen out of the habit (expense, winter swedes) but a regular influx of a greater variety of veg would be a good thing.

Op. Get yourself and the kids a high dose vit d spray.
We take one from holland and barrat that is a 3000iu dose.
None of us get coughs or colds anymore.

I think one thing as well is hand hygiene for everyone. Anti-bac gel. We took this round India with us, used it obsessively, and had no tummy bugs or illness at all, in spite of a similar trip to Sri Lanka ending in lots of problems. It won't solve everything, and I appreciate it is not the point of the thread, but it does help.

really? is that the miracle cure I need?? will look it up.

I think upping vitamin D exposure and supplementing has helped us cope better with winters too.

Or just send them out into the sunshine and get your vit D for free.....

Sadly no vitamin D from sun where I live between October and April.

have just been reading all about vit D, and getting confused by all the units (mg/IUs etc.) Looks like 3000IU/day is the absolute max. I will try it - I've been pg/bf for almost all of the last 8.5 years, so it does feel v possible that I've just exhausted all my base reserves.

I don't think hand hygiene is the issue just now - none of the rest of the family have got this cold/infection, it's just me, and I can't shift it.

Any other magic wand ideas I could/should try?

A good probiotic may be helpful sunny?