It's a new year, and a new opportunity to adopt a healthier eating lifestyle. What you eat -- at every stage of life -- has an impact on your brain health and performance. Your nutrition can positively impact growth, development, cognition, behavior, and mood, and even school performance. There are many big reasons to make small changes in daily nutrition.
Here's how to get started! Remember that you don’t need to change everything at once, and this doesn’t have to be a “everything or nothing approach.” Focusing on increasing healthy foods while decreasing ultra-processed foods can create small sustainable steps that lead to a big impact on overall brain health and development.
Clean Eating for Families — 10 Ideas to Support Your Nutrition Resolutions Journey
If you're ready to eat clean in the new year, here's how to achieve this beneficial goal.
1. Eat the Colors of the Rainbow
It's well understood that fruits and vegetables provide a wide spectrum of nutrients, but in order to make your kids gobble them up, you need to make them more enticing. Check out these tips to get your kids to eat more veggies (you'll have fun too). You can also make 3D art using fruits and vegetables, helping your children develop a more positive relationship with nutrient-dense foods.
2. Grow Your Own Food
Nothing is more rewarding than starting your own little backyard garden. Whether you grow tomatoes and herbs on your balcony or an array of fruit and vegetables in your backyard, this is a great way to become more active, as you teach your kids where food comes from. Here are 10 fruits and vegetables that are great to plant with kids! Don’t have a big year or a garden? That’s okay, there are more and more indoor options for growing herbs and veggies that require minimal space, making this more possible than ever to accomplish.
3. Cut Out Processed Foods
Cooking from scratch doesn't need to be a chore, especially when you make meals together, as a family. This is a great way to eliminate processed pre-made meals all while making cherished memories. Here are some tips to cook with kids of varying ages, helping them get more involved! It can be helpful to start with one meal or snack at a time to focus on healthy swaps or how to replace favorite items with a healthier, whole-food option. Breakfast can be a great place to start! Swap out the pre-packaged cereal for bacon and eggs, or oatmeal with flaxseed and fresh fruit.
4. Schedule Meal Times
When everyone is rushing around, doing their own thing, it's easy to grab nutrient-void foods that are convenient, as well as high-fat, sugary snacks. Whether it's breakfast before school or dinner, make meal time a priority. Sit down and eat together. For breakfast, lay out a quick spread of overnight oats, smoothies, no bake energy bites, or egg bites as examples. For dinner, depending on your weekly schedule, make time to eat together — and not in front of the TV.
5. Offer a Healthy Selection
Whether you're at the grocery store or preparing fruits and vegetables at home, give your family a choice. For example, allow your children to each pick one fruit and vegetable they would like to try or prepare that week. When it comes to meal time, make 2-3 vegetables, asking your child to pick two. That way, they will not feel as though they're being forced to eat foods they don't like.
6. Hide Healthy Ingredients in Family Favorite Dishes
Hide healthy ingredients in all of the dishes your family loves! Does your family love meatloaf? Why not incorporate finely diced vegetables and even oatmeal into the ground beef mixture? Get creative! Blending up spinach, nuts, seeds, or other veggies can make it easier to add these ingredients to smoothies, oatmeal, or even pasta dishes.
7. Prep Snacks Ahead of Time
There's a reason why unhealthy snack foods are gobbled up so quickly — they're easily available. The first step is to stop purchasing so many chips and cookies, so that they are no longer accessible and it can also be helpful for everyone to chip in and prepare healthier snacks in advance. Keep pre-prepped snacks visible and accessible. Creating a tray of fruits and veggies that sits on the table can encourage the whole family to grab a handful of a healthy treat when walking by - even if that healthy snack is not a favorite food! Adding a dip to the tray, such as a healthy ranch dressing, can help make those veggies even more appealing to grab, dip, and eat.
8. Experiment with Herbs and Spices
Instead of relying on salt for flavor, try incorporating more dried herbs and/or spices into your cooking. Even squeezing fresh lemon on your meals can do the trick! Fun foods to play with seasoning can include oatmeal, smoothies, and popcorn!
9. Eliminate "Family Style" Serving at the Table
Portion control is important, and when heaping bowls of food are in front of you, you're prone to eat more. One study found that when food is served family-style, people eat 35 percent more. Spoon out your meals at the counter or stove, and if there's leftovers, send healthy lunches the next day.
10. Sit Back and Observe
Instead of putting meals on the table and discussing why your children should eat every last bit, just sit back and enjoy regular conversation. Kids tend to eat intuitively, and if they feel as though they're being forced to eat certain things, they may rebel, especially if they are picky eaters. To ensure that kids consume a variety of nutrients, encourage them to try a few bites of everything on their plate. Discuss their favorites.
By implementing clean eating habits at a young age, you will encourage a foundation of good health for many years to come — but remember to also lead by example.
About Balance 360 Nutrition
Balance 360 nutrition focuses on research-backed recommendations to optimize brain health, development, and performance. By providing education and support around our pillars of nutritio,n we empower you to set a foundation of a brain-healthy lifestyle. Through one-on-one meetings with our nutrition experts, we meet you where you are and help you set realistic, achievable goals to elevate your brain health.
Our primary areas of focus consist of fuel, hydration, and reducing systemic inflammation. Fuel provides our bodies and brains with the nutrients needed to function at an optimal level. Proper hydration affects every cell in our bodies. We work to identify and minimize common dietary drivers of inflammation, including added sugars, ultra-processed foods, dyes, and artificial sweeteners.
