When we were grocery shopping this weekend Hannah picked up a Radicchio and declared that we just had to try it!! It really is a cute little thing and when we peeled the leaves it felt just like deflated balloons! Hannah ate some raw, I added some leaves to my morning juice and the rest we added to our baby spinach salad.

How do you eat Radicchio? Looking forward to hearing if you have any great radicchio recipes!

Happy Healthy Eating,
Kia

Kia Robertson is a mom and the creator of the Today I Ate A Rainbow kit; a tool that helps parents establish healthy habits by setting the goal of eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day. Kia is passionate about creating tools that help parents raise healthy kids!

Hannah has been helping out in the kitchen for years so we decided it was time for her to take on a bigger role once a week and prepare a meal for us. We are around to offer a helping hand or answer a question but for the most part the whole thing is up to her.  Every Sunday we all sit down together and write our grocery list by planning out all our meals for the week, at this time Hannah picks her weekly recipe from one of her cookbooks and lets us know what ingredients we need to add to our shopping list.

We’ve done this for two weeks now and it’s been a fantastic experience for us all but especially for Hannah because she glows with pride when we’re all sitting around the table ooh’ing and ahh’ing over her creation.  I thought her cheeks might explode from the giant smile on her face when I asked for a second helping of her pasta casserole!

Hannah has also learned that it takes a lot of planning and energy to make a meal for the family! By the time she is enjoying the meal she prepared she is tired (and she likes to let us know how much work it is to cook).  This has also made her much more appreciative and grateful for the meals we prepare for her because now she knows exactly what it takes to get dinner on the table!

The challenging part for us to to keep our mouths shut and let her make mistakes and find her own ways of doing things.  As parents it’s so easy for us to just do things for our kids because let’s face it, it’s faster, easier and usually less messy!  But when we let our children do things for themselves they learn so much more and take so much more pride in what they have accomplished.

Happy Healthy Eating,
Kia

Kia Robertson is a mom and the creator of the Today I Ate A Rainbow kit; a tool that helps parents establish healthy habits by setting the goal of eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day. Kia is passionate about creating tools that help parents raise healthy kids!

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be expensive! The truth is it can actually save you money!

Here are 7 ideas to eat healthy while sticking to your budget:

1. Make A Plan! Come up with some meal ideas for the week. Make a shopping list based on those meals and then stick to the list! If you don’t buy junk food and bring it into the house it will be easier to make healthy choices when it’s time to eat!

2. Shop around the perimeter of the store! This is where you’ll find all your important basics (fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy and breads) the middle aisles are where they keep the “convenient” processed food products that aren’t necessarily healthy and can wreck your budget if you’re not careful.

3. Make meatless meals at least once day a week. On those days you can easily get your protein from beans, nuts,veggies, seeds and grains.

4. Eat A Rainbow! Focus on buying and serving a rainbow of produce. Whether fresh or frozen, including colorful fruits and vegetables in your diet is a great healthy habit for the whole family!

5. Coupons! Watch for fliers and cut out coupons from your favorite grocery store…every penny you save makes a difference!

6. Shop on a Full Stomach! If you are hungry while you are shopping you are far more likely to buy more food so make sure you go on a full stomach.

7. Cook!! This has been the number one way we have reduced our monthly food bill. It is worth it to make the time to plan and prepare home cooked meals as often as you can, it is also healthier because you are in charge of the ingredients and you don’t have to worry about any unnecessary chemicals and preservatives and it’s better for the environment because you are preparing food that didn’t need to be packaged and shipped. So it’s a win win situation.  Besides the best way for your kids to learn the importance of healthy food choices is by your example so get the family together in the kitchen and have some fun!

Happy Healthy Eating,
Kia

Kia Robertson is a mom and the creator of the Today I Ate A Rainbow kit; a tool that helps parents establish healthy habits by setting the goal of eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day. Kia is passionate about creating tools that help parents raise healthy kids!

As parents we “know” that our children should be eating a minimum of 5 servings a day of fruits and vegetables however getting them to actually eat their fruits and veggies is a different story!

Here are some suggestions that might help get your kids eating their fruits and vegetables, thanks to our friends from Chooserly.com for helping us adding some points:

1. Keep Fruits and Vegetables in Sight: Stock your fridge full of washed and ready to eat fruits and veggies.  Having them cut up in slices makes it even easier for your kids to reach in and grab a quick healthy snack.

2. Remove the Competition: If you provide only healthy options they will get eaten!  Leave the junk food for an occasional treat!

3. Prepare Meals Together: Bring kids into the kitchen starting at a young age. Toddlers can wash and rip lettuce, preschoolers can measure and stir, and older kids can find recipes and help create meals. Children are far more likely to dig into a new dish if they helped prepare it!

4. Take them Grocery Shopping: When you have the time, take your children grocery shopping with you and let them pick out a fruit or vegetable. Challenge them put a rainbow in the shopping cart!

5. Serve a Fruit or Vegetable with Every Meal: Every day and every meal, fruits and veggies should be on the menu. Eating this way makes it easy to get the minimum 5 servings of produce a day!

6. Keep it Simple: Veggies taste best when you don’t do too much to them.  Eating them raw seems to be a favorite with kids.  Add some yummy dip and your done!

7. Be a good Role Model: If you expect your child to eat vegetables, you need to be eating them, too!

8. Eat the Same Meals: Make one meal for the family. Don’t start the habit of serving different menus for everyone as you’ll end up with a house full of picky eaters and a lot of extra work in the kitchen!!

9.  Keep trying: Kids need to be exposed to, and ideally taste, a new food as many as 10 to 15 times before they’ll accept it.  Just getting them to take one bite is a victory!

10. Make it Fun: Kids are fun people and they love playing games. Keep that in mind  and  make healthy eating a fun challenge rather than a battle.

Happy Healthy Eating
Kia

Kia Robertson is a mom and the creator of the Today I Ate A Rainbow kit; a tool that helps parents establish healthy habits by setting the goal of eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day. Kia is passionate about creating tools that help parents raise healthy kids!