Healthy eaters, please help me!!

[Tolalola]

I would really appreciate some advice from all of you who eat balanced and healthy diets and who cook a lot...

DS has just turned 2, and I want us (DS, DP and me) to start eating together every night. I am determined that DS should not get the food issues that my Dsis and I both have.

I can cook, and where I live we can't really buy ready meals, but I need some inspiration for healthy things to cook that we can all eat together.

DP and I could both stand to lose a bit of weight, but I definitely don't want to go on a diet with a start and end date, I want us all to eat healthily for ever. I don't want to 'ban' things, really, but I do want to know what to really cut back on.

Do most of you plan all your meals for the week? Do you just eat healthily automatically or do you really really think about it?

I will eat anything except liver and raw peppers and onions and DS will try anything at all. DP is more problematic as he's American and was brought up on junk, tins and processed stuff and that is what he really likes. There are loads of vegetables he won't eat and he is really into lost of meat.

Any help/tips/ideas would be gratefully received.

Portion size is a good starter!

also think about proportions of meat/carbs/veg on the plate.

I avoid junky fats: bought fried food, margarines, over-processed cheeses.

Thinks about the variety of fruit and veg - eg a fruit salad once a week will boost vitamin intake enormously, but will be compromised if you cover it in double cream!

Some foods are definately "treat" foods in this house - eg chocolate spread, chocolate, sweets, bought biscuits, crisps, salted nuts.

And no, I don,'t eat meltedmarsbars every day!

What marsbars said!

Dunno about your American-junkie DH tho! What about weaning him onto lean meat - grilled, etc and home-made potato wedges with v little oit, etc?

And make him try the veggies - just a spoonful each meal. Doesn't it take 20 tries before they get used to something new?

I'd suggest doing seasonal food, without any options so that if they are hungry, they'll eat it and eventually get used to eating more healthily!

I don't meal plan, but I do write a seasonal cookery blog, as do many others with weekly inspiration (I have a toddler and a 1 yr old).

There are loads of good meal plans on here, where people plan two weeks, then repeat, so you can buy in bulk for two weeks. I guess that would help with getting them used to flavours.

good luck!

Thanks everyone! I think you are right and that portion size is definitely an issue. We live in the Caribbean and most of the food here is imported from the US, so portions tend to be very large. About how much meat or fish is a proper portion? They tend to sell fish, chicken breasts etc here in 8 oz portions as the smallest.

Should proportions be 1:2:3 meat:carbs:veg or thereabouts?

What kinds of cheeses are overprocessed? DS loves cheese.

Fruit salad once a week is a great idea. We never eat pudding really. And I'm just going to serve the veg that I feel like and DP can eat it or not .

go Tolalola!

Wow, you must have great fruit in the Carribean! I'm jealous! Its been snowing all day here!

It used to be 4oz meat per person but nowadays I think we must eat about 6 or 8 oz - which is why we are all overweight!!

We also do several meat-free meals each week. (eg pasta in sauce made of tomato etc)

By overprocessed I mean cheese that doesn't look or smell like it came from a cow/sheep/goat! - eg cheese strings etc.

this is called the "eat well" plate.

We eat pretty healthily and I don't plan meticulously. We are veggie and typical winter meals for us are things like spinach and pototo curry with dal and rice, vegetable and lentil lasagna, black bean chilli, stews and hotpots of root veg served with greens of some sort, veg gratins and so on. In summer we eat things like stirfries, salads, veggie kebabs and spanish omelettes a lot. It sounds like that lot might be going a bit far for your DH but the principles are the same, lots of hearty stews and baked dishes served with plenty of veg in winter, and dishes of grilled or stir-fried meat or fish with salads and rice/new potatoes/couscous in the summer.

I think you'll find that as you build up a repertoire of healthy meals that you all like you stop having to think about it much. I take a list for the basics when I go shopping but otherwise just buy whatever looks good in the greengrocers, and then plan meals around that.

Other things that help are:

I always have at least two meal's worth of curry or chilli or the like in the freezer in case I get home too knackered to cook.

We do eat brown bread, rice and pasta, but it is not an article of faith. We eat basmati rice, non-brown pasta and fresh white bread sometimes too. You should work out when you prefer which sort. I like wholemeal pasta with spicy tomato pasta sauces and prefer my (meat-free) carbonara sauce with linguini. Similarly I like brown rice with chilli, but prefer white basmati rice with curries.

I do a supermarket order for tinned and dried things about once every couple of months, which gives me some flexibility about what I cook each night, if we feel like Thai green curry rather than pasta (again) we usually have coconut milk and rice in and curry paste in the freezer.

DH tries to cook about once a week too, although it probably averages about once a fortnight but only because I enjoy cooking more than him.

Without knowing what you eat right now it is hard to suggest what you should cut back. But in any event it is probably easier to think about what you should be eating more of. If you introduce more fruit, veg and complex carbs into your diet, you'll eat fewer of the unhealthy things simply because you won't have room.

Thanks v. much for the eat well plate meltedmarsbars. I have printed it and stuck it on the fridge I'll try to go for at least one veggie and 2 fish things per week, I think, and will try to stick to 6 oz of meat.

Some of the fruit here is nice, but lots is seasonal (mangoes etc) and the vast majority is imported. I miss things like berries a lot, frozen are not the same...

Thanks for the useful info VeronicaCake, DS loves curry, but hates meat in it, so I'll freeze a couple of chick pea ones for tired/hectic days. Good idea. I like brown rice and pasta and I doubt DP would really notice one way or the other, so will sneak those in too. I make our bread (multigrain) as the stuff you can buy here is mostly disgusting.

As to what we eat now...When in doubt throw bacon and/or cheese at it, seems to have become my motto, which is why I need help ! Have definitely fallen into bad habits.