Fruit Inspection

Two weeks into our summer break, and already I’m tired of being the food nazi. (And the referee and the TV police, but that’s for another post!) Without the routine of a daily schedule, my kids have been watching more TV, or possibly they are bored from being restricted from watching TV, and so the mindless eating begins.

This bothers me for several reasons. First of all, it’s not healthy. Second of all, I hate going to the grocery store. So I rarely go. And when I do go, I stock up! Big time! But their kitchen grazing usually leaves our home void of snacks. Not that that’s such a bad thing. Except when the whining begins that “we don’t have anything to eeeeeeeat.”

But that’s only when I’m PMSing. (ahem)

Thirdly I don’t like it because they are constantly asking me if they can have a cookie, or a popsicle, or a Little Debbie snack and I have to go through the whole “what have you already had to eat today” scenario. And more times than not, I have to say “No, eat some fruit or vegetables, you’ve had enough sugar for today.”

Then I’m the bad guy. Again.

So in an effort to give them more responsibility and help them balance their food choices, and keep me from having to always say no, I created these little sticks this morning. Each of us (including ME), has our own pot. In each pot are sticks with what we should be eating each day written on them. There are 5 fruits, 3 veggies, 2 proteins, 1 fiber, 1 sugar, 1 dairy, 2 waters, 1 exercise, and 1 for vitamins.

In researching the food pyramid today I was reminded that we should also be eating different colors of fruits and vegetables each day, because they have different vitamins and minerals stored inside them. So my fruit sticks are written in orange, yellow, red, green and purple. And on the back, I have written which fruits fall into that category. Like the green vegetable stick in the picture above.

As they go through their day, they flip over the sticks of what they’ve already eaten to see the smiley face on the other end. Then they can look to see what’s left and know that it’s still lacking from their diet, and make their snacking choices based on what they see. And one little perk is the exercise stick. If they do at least 30 minutes of walking, running, biking, swimming, etc, when they flip that stick over, they get another sugar! Woo hoo!!!

My hope is that this will encourage them to stop and think about what they are eating. To draw attention to how much a “serving size” actually is. And create a healthier environment for the entire family. As for me, I will have to be very diligent to make sure there are always plenty of good choices and plan our family meals around good nutritional food.

Who knew such a good thing could come from $3 Walmart craft sticks???