How to Plan a Healthier Family Menu
Healthy menu planning is important for many reasons. Many families struggle with planning a healthy menu. They think they don't have enough time to plan or their kids won't possibly eat the vegetables. However, this does not have to be so. Menu planning is a great way to ensure that your family eats healthy, while exposing them to new foods as well as preparing old favorites.
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Instructions
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Ask members what their favorite foods and what they want to eat that week. Offer healthy alternatives to some of their food ideas.
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Find lower-fat and lower-calorie options for ingredients in your favorite dishes. Also, add a new dish each week, while rotating your old favorites. Adding new dishes while rotating favorites gives the family members a chance to eat what they like and learn about new, healthier dishes they may also like.
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Plan out your side dishes, desserts, beverages and snacks to ensure that your family is getting all the proper nutrients they need and remain on a healthy track. You can use the food guide pyramid as a resource to help plan your meals for the week to ensure that you are getting the proper amount of fruits, vegetables, grains, protein and dairy.
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Provide healthy snack choices like raw vegetables, fruit, nuts and nut butters. This will eliminate the need for unhealthy snacks like potato chips. If the only option is healthy, your family will have no choice but to eat healthy.
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Put your weekly menu in writing and display it in a prominent area, like the refrigerator, so everyone knows what is on the menu that day. Make a list to shop with. That way you are less likely to buy things you do not need that week. Adhere to the list.
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Keep the family involved. A family that shares responsibilities in the kitchen will more readily recognize the long-term importance of eating healthy. Divide responsibilities a number of ways. The adults and older teenagers can shop for the groceries, and preteens, adolescents and even younger children can help to carry in the groceries and put them away. You can even divide the cooking responsibilities with adults and older adolescents preparing meals each night, with the younger children preparing the ingredients by measuring, mixing and cutting up ingredients.
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Make healthy menu planning a habit. Plan a week's worth of meals every week. At first, menu planning is new and strange. However, after a few weeks, it will become second nature.
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