Picky Eaters

As many of you know I have 3 amazing sons, ranging from 18 to 8 and they all have different likes and dislikes regarding food.
I have been involved in the fitness industry in various capacities for 25 years and have learned many things regarding nutrition over this time. One solid concept is " What is fuel for one, is poison for another". Each individual has specific innate nutritional requirements that is built into our DNA and the body knows best. Don't mess with it's formula, it is like messing with mother nature and we all know not to do that! But we do like to help her along the way!

I have been blessed that each of my 3 sons have chosen me to be there Mom and this is no easy job as any Mom can attest too. With it, my primary goal is to build a strong healthy immune system for each of them taking into consideration they each like different foods! Talk about challenging, add on top of that, they go to school, play sports, have sleep overs, etc etc. Even harder now!
The job gets damn near impossible when you have a kid that is a picky eater or has a food allergy!
So what does a dedicated Mom do? She tricks her picky eater!!
Yesterday, I wanted my protein eating son,  to eat some much needed carbohydrates and fat.
I sneak  fat into this boys diet every day, real fat like cultured butter, organic coconut oil, fat from fish, full fat natural yogurt, avocados,supplemental fat, ie fish oil. Since this son is a protein eater, I don't mess with the formula however I do sneak in keys ingredients to assist him along the way.
 Yesterday, I tricked him with banana bread. All my boys love banana bread but not all of them will eat bananas!
I want my boys to consume slow releasing energy producing carbohydrates ( trick one) so I use spelt flour instead of pastry or white flour and instead of lard, margarine or butter I use coconut oil, for sweetening I do not use sugar instead I use real maple syrup, I subsitute milk with natural kefir and add the almighty salba!!
Ironically, I also use 5 ripe bananas, how is that for trickery!!!!

Truth be told I am not a keen baker, in fact I am not that good at it but I do it for my kids. A fellow nutritionist, Lorene Sauro is a dear mentor and former pastry chef has spent much time developing recipes for healthy baking. I have been lucky enough to have been taught by her in a class room and in a kitchen! You can too as she has published her first book last year, " A Pastry Queen Goes Green"

Kids love homemade baking and you can actually make it healthy and tasty. Store boughts are made with inferior ingredients and really have no place in diet especially if you want to build a strong immune system for your kids.

Sometimes we, Moms, have to resort to tricks to get our kids to eat well, not all kids are the same  and if we listen to the ques we can figure out ways to give them a diet that it highly nutritious.

So far I think I am doing a good job, only one of my kids has taken a full dose of antibiotics and only once!!

Good Luck to all the Moms with Picky Eaters!!