Tags: Healthy Kids Little Foodies New Year Nuts & Seeds
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope everyone has had a wonderful first week of 2020…have your New Year’s resolutions gone out the window yet? If not, you’re doing better than 80% of the population!
I learned a long time ago NOT to make resolutions. I would get all organized with my resolution list, pumped to change my whole life as the first of January approached, and then crash hard when I broke ALL of them in the first week or two of January. Talk about self-loathing! I’d battle with those failures for a while and then start planning the next years restart…asinine!
After a few years of that tragic plan I decided to stop the resolutions and start doing reminders. Each year in December I write a list of things I’d like to improve upon over the year. I put a copy of that list in my wallet, in the drawer that holds my hairbrush, and use it as a bookmark in whatever book I’m reading. I want to make sure I’m reminded of that last all year long so that I can continue to work towards my goals.
On the list last year was “be more health conscious with meal planning” and I’m proud to say that I made a sizable dent in that goal. I’ve always been pretty good about preparing balanced and healthy meals for my family, but as the boys have gotten bigger and started eating us out of house and home, I noticed my standards were starting to slip. I was buying less healthy options and more processed and easy options. No Bueno!
I think the pressure of feeding two teenage boys (trapped in the bodies of children) got to me and I switched from “health-conscious mom” to “stock-up-on-all-boxed-snacks-to-stave-off-the-hunger-pains-mom”!! The boys were eating more than I thought humanly possible for kids their ages, and I just couldn’t keep up.
The slap on the wrist came at the end of 2018 when we took the boys in for their check-ups and the doctor told us Silas was boarder obese and Liev WAS obese! I couldn’t believe it!! My kids weren’t even in Kindergarten yet and they already had weight problems! Now grant it, I think the doctor was off or the standard calculations are off because the boys didn’t look overweight at all. I just knew, however, that if we didn’t get a handle on it now, they WOULD have obesity problems in the future.
I went home and cleaned out the pantry. We went back to three meals a day with one afternoon snack. I cut out all processed foods and as much sugar as I could. And this went for everyone. Adrian and I readjusted our eating as well. We both understood that as a family we needed to be better eaters. Once everyone was back on the “healthy eating” wagon I started doing some research. I wasn’t looking for a diet…I refuse to diet because I love food too much…I was looking for the best approach to a whole/clean eating lifestyle. I didn’t want to cut everything out, but I knew one of the major things was to cut back on our meat intake. I wanted to find a way to balance all the things that we loved to eat. “Everything in moderation” became my motto.
It was hard at first because all our favorite meals were pasta or meat heavy so I had to start building a list of menu options from scratch. There was also a lot of trial-and-error because I needed to see which substitution items could earn the boys’ approval.
I tried lentils and chickpeas, tofu and brown rice…it didn’t go well at first. I realized that a stark change in their eating wasn’t going to work. My little Bolognese lovers were not going to suddenly accept weird looking whole lentils in their pasta sauce or chickpeas in their masala. I needed to disguise the change. I went back to the drawing board and started researching ways to keep making their favorite dishes while sneakily adding or substituting healthier ingredients.
My first sneaky recipe was Bolognese with GROUND lentils. (Cooked lentils pulsed in the food processor a few times is also identical to ground beef!) I served it, sat down and nervously watched the boys take their first bites…a success!! I remember smiling at Adrian, who knew what I had done, and being very proud of myself.
Since that first meal I’ve braved tofu tacos, meatless meatballs, and vegetarian shepherd’s pie. All with rave reviews from my little foodies. We’re now down to eating meat only once a week and nobody had to give up their favorite meals. While I’m 95% sure we’ll never go full vegetarian, I do feel better about eating less meat. And when we do eat meat, I make sure to buy the freshest, highest quality meat I can get my hands on.
Trying to eat less meat, fewer or no processed foods, and less white sugar or none at all has been a challenge, but we’ve managed to do it—for the most part—and we feel better for it. I want to give my children the best possible life and that also means helping them be the healthiest they can be. I want to teach them good eating habits now so that when they’re older they (hopefully) won’t have to deal with the high-cholesterol, high-blood sugar issues that plague so many Americans.
On that train of thought, I decided to get them involved in our lifestyle change—well, Liev more than Silas for now. I had Liev start a food journal last year…every week he picks out something from the produce section that he either doesn’t recognize or wants to try again. We prepare it together, sit down and try it, and document our thoughts on the item. We’re having a blast with it!! There have been some positive journal entries and some rather disastrous (and hilarious) journal entries. Whatever the results, I love getting my little foodies involved in the kitchen.
One of our recent favorite breakfast recipes is the copy-cat recipe for the “Lumberjack Pancakes” at Stacks. If you’re from the Bay Area I’m sure you’ve tried or at least seen a Stacks restaurant. They were one of my all-time favorite breakfast joints in northern California when I lived there…the best omelets and skillets I’ve ever had. Of course, they were demoted once I tried Wildberry in Chicago, but I’d say Stacks is still in my top five.
My mom always ordered the lumberjack pancakes and I never understood why. Why would you go to a restaurant and order something you could so easily make at home? Well, I figured it out one day after trying them…they’re KILLER!!
These pancakes have blueberries, bananas, raisins, walnuts and wheat germ added to them to create this sublime granola-meets-pancakes-meets-trail mix breakfast masterpiece. There’s so much flavor-goodness in one pancake, it’s hard to imagine they’re also full of healthy-goodness. That’s my kind of meal. These were a hit with the boys as well…although I did drop the raisins over time because the texture wasn’t that appealing for a fluffy pancake.
If you have any pancake lovers in your home, try this combo…it’s a wonderful “healthy and delicious” recipe, which can be hard to come by (I speak from experience!)
LUMBERJACK PANCAKES
- Packaged pancake mix, I like the Buttermillk Pancake mix from Trader Joes
- Blueberries
- Banana, peeled and sliced
- Walnuts, chopped
- Wheat Germ
- Raisins (optional in my opinion)
How To:
Mix your pancake batter to a smooth consistency. Spoon ¼ cup of batter onto your preheated griddle or pan and top with the toppings listed above—whatever ratio you prefer. Flip, plate, cover in a good quality maple syrup (or honey) and ENJOY!
*Side Note: I would suggest going easy on the wheat germ. If making 6-8 pancakes, try to distribute 2 tablespoons evenly among them while cooking.
