I do a great job feeding my kids REAL food everyday. It may not always be the most exciting REAL food meals and snacks (tacos again?), but we really don't have any fake food in our home and very little bridging food.  What I need to do better is planning and prep.  I am working on getting better at the planning and prep part, which makes life so much easier when I do it. It also brings my food bill down. So, I'm springing into action (again!). This weekend I scheduled the time to plan and prep for the week. I also involved the whole family in either helping with food prep or doing other chores (Mike was the Vacuum and Laundry King this weekend - Go Mike!) so I could focus on food prep.  I actually soaked all my quinoa, black beans, oats, walnuts, sunflower seeds & pumpkin seeds overnight.  I even dried the nuts, seeds and oats - and ground the oats into flour!  So proud of myself today - I keep catching myself standing in front of the open fridge just admiring all that beautifully prepped REAL food!
 
My kids love to cook and when I'm organized it's so fun to get them into the kitchen with me. The life lessons are so rich. They learn more about REAL food and about how people who want to be healthy have to think ahead and have REAL food ready to go. They get to apply all that math they learn at school so they can stop asking me, "When am I ever going to need to know about fractions?"!
 

They also learn how food feeds not only the body, but the spirit. I talk with them about making sure to include the most missing ingredient - LOVE - into the meals and snacks they are helping with. It's so funny because often when we are eating together and I try to have them guess what ingredients are in the meal or snack, they  remind me that I added lots of Love too!

Planning and prepping healthy meals and healthy snacks can be stressful at times. Like everything else, 90% of the stress comes from our response to the situation. I am working  on 'reframing' the planning and prepping and seeing it as a time to involve the kids more (again), and Mike too. We could easily make it a fun family time if we chose too. I recently heard a 14-year old chef on the radio who said he became passionate about cooking because he started cooking with his mom and dad everyday when he was really little and it was fun for the whole family. They chose to make it fun. We can make it fun, right?

I'm looking for inspiration from you. How do you make planning and prepping more fun? How do you involve your child in prepping health meals and healthy snacks? Or, like me, are you looking for ideas to inspire you as well?

~Angelle

Some of what's on the Batten Family menu this week:
Breakfast: lightly poached eggs on a bed of spinach with avocado; Smoothies (of course); Overnight Pancakes, Taco Salad, Apple Cole Slaw w/ Turkey
Lunch: Taco Salad, Salmon Salad on Greens, Salsa Salad w/ quinoa, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese cubes and salsa, Apple Cole Slaw
Dinner: Roasted Chicken, Layered Bean Dip w/ Chef Jackie's Taco Seasoning, Michigan Chicken Salad
Snacks: Vegetables, Fruit Kabobs, Trail Mix, & Chocolate Coconut Raw Bars, Banana Bon Bons from our new REAL Snack eBook


Remember to set your DVR for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution series premier March 26th!

Activity Cupboard: Math at the Grocery Store
REAL Mom of the Month: Nicole Jones
Name This Product: Is Your Child Eating These?