Dinner Downers

Today we have a guest blogger, our dear friend Jenni Cockerham!  She is as passionate about food, health, and wellness as we are and has been an amazing resource and friend during this journey to eat more plant based.  In lieu of a discussion we had last week, we wanted her to blog about the frustrations we often feel when trying new recipes and foods with our families.  Enjoy her insights as well as her blog

http://jenni-100cupsofcoffee.blogspot.com/. 

Happy eats -

leanne & dawn

P.S.  Her latest post, Chocolate Lava Cakes, looks scrumptious!

Dinner Downers

For a very long time, it seemed the more I tried to aggressively insert vegetables into my families’ diet, the more discouraged I became.  Here's the deal, I feel like I have spent the last year and a half walking through bad meal after bad meal.  Dinners have been interrupted by spankings, yelling, time outs, throw up (they have actually thrown up after gagging on a particularly funky morsel), and many, many more you-sorta-wannna-laugh, you-sorta-wanna-cry moments!   We have bribed with desserts (not always clean), thrown away food, and even once spent an entire meal "paying" our kids to try new items on their plates.  For every bite they tried they got a dime!  

SO friends, do not lose heart!

Here are a few things I have learned along the way:

1.  Try, try, and try again.  They eventually DO try new things AND LIKE them.  Keep trying.  Some of the same things that made my kids gag are now their favorites!?!

2.  Do not introduce too much too soon:

In every meal I try to have at least ONE fruit, vegetable, grain, or pasta, they DO like.  (This is so I don’t have to make a separate meal, but I also don’t send a kid to bed starving.) 

3.  Do not try too many new meals in one week.  For a while I was doing a new meal every night and it was stressing my husband out and ending with terrible tantrums.  We treasure dinnertime.   It is a time to connect as a family but it often felt more like a battlefield.  I bumped it down to a new meal once or twice a week and this seemed to go over MUCH better.   

4.  On the flip side, I try to have 1 to 2 meals a week that they LOVE.  Bring back oldies but goodies.  My kids LOVE the gnocchi from Peas and Thank You.  It is made with tofu cream cheese and firm tofu.  I don't care that they are not the "perfect" ingredients, but I love that my kids eat asparagus and other veggies alongside that meal and they are full of smiles!

5.  I have a few more “practical” thoughts in my blog on “How do I get the Family Clean?”  http://jenni-100cupsofcoffee.blogspot.com/

Life is filled with shades of gray.  I continue to learn that it is simply never “black and white,” and it is never as easy as it seems. Nutrition follows the same truths.  So PLEASE don't get discouraged!  Know that you are “setting the table” one bite at a time, one meal at a time, to help shape your families’ lifelong health and wellness.  You are literally helping to create habits and health for their lifetime.  

Give yourself LOTS of grace - it's the only way they will really "grab their greens"!  =)

- Jenni