All Good Intentions

In the past year or so, during numerous lockdowns with a household full of chores and home-learning to complete, food preparation can become a cumbersome and mundane task at times.  With the growing convenience of food delivery apps, fast food is literally just a fingertip away.  We have all been there, in the first few months we did our best to feed the family all home-cooked wholesome meals 3 times a day, but sometimes, during our weak moments it is so easy to give in to the convenience of ordering tasty meals that gets delivered to your doorstep than preparing something from scratch.  Besides, the kids love them and won’t complain about anything tasting bland!  But this means losing control of what kind of ingredients go into our meals, so much for trying to promote a healthy eating habit for the family!

Eat Healthy Stay Healthy

Recently, everyone around me, myself included, has become more health conscious now that we are slowly emerging from the post pandemic life.  An important lesson we have learned from this ordeal is that we should try to stay fit and healthy in the hope of improving our immune system and lowering the chance of getting sick.  Apart from physical workouts, the next most obvious thing we need to pay attention to is food.  As life sort of gets back to “normal”, running around between home, office, and schools will be part of our daily routine once again, leaving us less time to prepare food.  So we need to look for smarter ways to plan our meals to make sure our family still gets healthy breakfasts and dinners all the same.

Taking on the vending machines

Now the trick is how to make sure the kids get a decent lunch when parents cannot keep a watchful eye on the little ones when they are at school?  Our ultimate challenge is back again:  open war with fast foods and vending machines!  The fact sheet put together by Centre of Disease Control and Prevention in the US shows us a summary of what youngsters’ eating behaviour is like these days and I am shocked by the amount of empty calories found in the most popular snacks available at schools.

Let the kids decide

Therefore, we need to guide our children to choose healthier foods so they can develop a balanced eating habit in the long run.  I find this article very helpful in suggesting a moderate way to slowly change the eating preferences of children, and to let them have a choice within a reasonable selection of foods. As they get older, they can be involved in setting their own school lunch menus.  My daughters get together every weekend to lookup yummy recipes, decide what shall be their lunches in the coming week, and come up with a grocery list for me to get the ingredients.  It’s so nice to see that they are in control of what they eat and are making sensible choices!

Stay Sparky!