Encouraging Children to Eat Healthy Meals

Hey Neighbors!

Imagine, I have just started doing extra in the kitchen with my children, and Social Moms and Uncle Ben's team up to bring a post about making healthy meals for your children.  Now I just have to tell you, that we add rice to alot of our meals!  My husband could have rice with butter as a side dish every night of the week!

Just yesterday we created a really great meal using rice!  We started out by marinating chicken breast chunks in a Teriyaki Sauce and some of it in a Buffalo Sauce.  I personally don't like spicy, but the Buffalo Sauce won hands down with the rest of my family.  The girls all helped prepare the meal.  Anyway, after marinading the chicken for several hours, we placed the chicken in baking dishes and placing them in the oven.  We started rice next.  While waiting for the water to boil, we pulled out the wok and started stir fry veggies.  Yum!  The veggies included broccoli, mushrooms, snap peas, red pepper, carrots, water chestnuts, and those little corn things!  With eight of us and one guest we had to do two pans of veggies.  Unfortunately we underestimated on the chicken.  Everyone wanted more!  So, today we purchased more chicken and other ingredients and are making it again tomorrow!

Buffalo Chicken

I find that my children seem to be more excited about eating healthy when they help.  My two youngest daughters, 11 and 14, are all excited because soon they get to do a the whole week of meal planning and cooking.  They love to search through recipe books to find new meals to try.  And of course my neighbors know they have started baking their own bread.  Much better for you, you know!

Teriyaki Chicken

I try to use fresh veggies whenever possible to make the meals healthier.  We also use alot of chicken.  I try to use fish, but it is not a very welcomed item by most members of my family.  I also substitute ground turkey for ground beef.  While I would not label us health nuts, we do try to add healthy ingredients when possible.

Stir Fry Veggies

Now, Uncle Ben's is having a Beginner's Cooking Contest to encourage children to cook healthy meals.  Have them create a meal using rice and then video them and their excitement over the meal and cooking, and then upload it to the contest site.  Maybe they could win!  perhaps my girls could do our rice and chicken with stir fried veggies to enter!




How do my neighbors encourage their children to cook and eat healthy?  Do you have a special recipe to share?  I know a few people posted a bread recipe last week, and we are looking forward to trying them!

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Uncle Ben’s blogging program, for 6,000 My SocialMoms Rewards Points. For more information on how you can participate, click here.