When you have kids and you want to them to do something or eat something they don’t necessarily like, you have to get creative to get them to do it. Eating healthy food wasn’t ever an issue with my kids, in fact, they all loved broccoli and salad as much I me. I did find however, the way I presented their food certainly helped in its consumption.
I understood this concept, because to this day, if my sandwich is not cut in half from corner to corner, creating triangle halves, then the sandwich just doesn’t seem to look as enticing to eat and doesn’t taste as good as it should. It’s something from my childhood that has stuck with me, which were the good sandwiches were always the ones that were cut and presented nicely. Weird huh?
It’s this mentality that has helped me enjoy eating healthier foods. I’ve found eating healthy food requires two things, presentation and taste. Presentation is my focus in this post because it all starts with the way the food looks and is presented.
One of the healthiest and hardest fruits to eat for me was apples which was a shame because apples are FREE foods. It takes more calories to burn the apple than is actually IN the apple. All the extra healthy goodness in apples is found in their skins, so eating the skin is paramount. Although I like the flavor of apples, I don’t like eating the raw apple. The skin and hardness to them was a real turn off. Eating an apple hurt my gums biting into them and also was messy. I tried using an apple slicer to see if slicing them into smaller portions would help, but it still had all that skin and the slices were still deep enough that my gums were still affected.
One day I was craving chips and with none in the house, I searched for a substitute to satisfy the craving. The crispiest thing I could find was an apple. I figured maybe I could trick my craving with an apple, so I cut it into chip slices. My craving had solved a dilemma two-fold, thank you craving! I ate that apple and actually enjoyed it. It didn’t hurt my gums and the skins were tolerable in the small portions. Now apples are one of my favorite snacks, especially in the evenings. I call my apple snacks one of my warrior snacks because I know when I eat them they are working hard on my insides to burn calories and provide nutrition.
If you have a similar aversion to apples, try preparing them a different way. Even slicing them differently can offer a huge remedy to cure your aversion. It did for me and I’m thrilled!
Myrnadez 