Having a hard time getting your little one to eat their broccoli? The struggle to get kids to eat a variety of healthy foods is real, even for moms who are nutrition experts. Jennifer Anderson, a registered dietitian and mother, has been there with her kids and knows what works. Now she shares tips to get kids to try new foods and budget-friendly recipes for families with her 1.3-million followers on her Instagram account Kids Eat In Color.
Anderson recommends these ideas for getting kiddos to try new foods without wasting food or money:
- Serve “micro portions”- This means giving them a very small amount of something to start with and then letting them ask for more until they are full. Anderson says this helps reduce food waste while also stretching your food budget.
- Learn how to cook a few basics- Start with learning how to make some basic foods that you can stretch into several meals. She suggests buying and cooking a chicken on the weekend and turning it into budget-friendly meals over the course of the week.
- Don’t always splurge on organic foods- Knowing when it’s okay not to choose organic foods can help you get more bang for your buck, Anderson says. You can use the Dirty Dozenlist of the top 12 foods with the most pesticides and the Clean 15list of which foods have the least pesticides to guide you. Conventionally grown foods are a lot less expensive than organic, so they’ll help you get more food for your dollar.