Just a Couple Days Left of National Fiber Focus Month

With February coming to a close, so does National Fiber Focus Month, which is well worth consideration since, according to WebMD, most adults are getting much less fiber than what they need each day.

Fiber has been linked scientifically to such health benefits as decreasing blood cholesterol levels, which protects against certain forms of cancer; helping control weight be increasing satiety; not to mention day-to-day prevention of constipation.  [Source: Today's Dietician]

Clearly, it would be to our long-term health advantage to work on getting more fiber in our diets!  This is why I chose to create a Squidoo lens featuring some good recipes from our food blog that are high in fiber and have delicious flavor combinations for the month’s Food Club Challenge.  I know when I get past the initial thought of adding more fiber to my diet meaning boring foods with little to no flavor, it is much easier to make sure my intake of this important nutrient is where it should be.

Check out my Squidoo lens and the recipes with fiber rich foods, and vote in the poll for which recipe you’d be most likely to try as you think about ways to add more fiber into your diet.  We will all be healthier and raise healthier children if we do!

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Today we have a guest post for you by a Mom, Barbara Filgate-Cobham, who was a picky herself as a child. Read on for some tips from her experiences and for her “secret” spaghetti sauce recipe.

How I Survived My Picky Eaters

Many moms know just what I mean. You get to hear about it from that nosy aunt or that well-meaning friend all. the. time. It makes ordering in restaurants a challenge and making school lunches an ordeal. I’m talking about feeding picky children.

I have two girls who are now 18 and 14. They started out as great eaters! In fact, the older one would eat things I didn’t even like and I tried desperately not to pass on any pre-conceived ideas about food. Even when at two, she stole my boyfriend’s shrimp! I have never cared for seafood and interestingly enough, am now extremely allergic.

However, as she got older and was later joined by a younger sister, she became fussy about what she liked. She would eat only chicken noodle soup for lunch for so long that my dad made up a song about it! Later, even the younger one became pickier about her food choices and they didn’t even have the SAME picky habits, but totally different ones!

Obviously, they have survived this long, so I thought I might be able to share some tips to help some other moms out.

Remember Your Own Childhood

I was a picky eater as a child myself. Yup. I admit it. There are so many things I eat now that I would not have touched as a child. I truly think this helped me to have some perspective. I was an extremely sensitive child and many textures were uncomfortable for me. As I grew older, I found that things like macaroni were pleasant, which was not my experience at all as a child.

They Won’t Die and They Probably Won’t Become Gravely Ill

The other thing that helped me was that my mom was good about the fact that I didn’t like my food touching on the plate and that certain things just didn’t feel or taste right to me. Given that she grew up during World War II with very little, I feel extremely blessed that this was the case! She even took me to a doctor who suggested that peanut butter and apples were not a bad start and to offer me foods occasionally, but not to sweat it too much.

Focus on What They DO Eat Rather Than What They Don’t

It is super important to find a handful of healthy things they will eat, even if you feel like you are offering the same foods over and over.

There is Hope!

In my own case, I was very fortunate because my picky eaters actually LIKED several of the foods other fussies don’t, such as broccoli, asparagus and caesar salad! I made it a point to offer them veggies and fruits they liked and not to push too much other stuff, but merely to continue to offer new things now and then. In some cases, it actually worked. My older daughter now eats many things she wouldn’t ever have tried in the past and she loves cooking and experimenting now.

The younger one decided she is vegetarian just over a year ago, so it can be more challenging to make sure she is well fed sometimes.  I try to have beans or hummus or something like that around for her to keep her iron levels up.

Most of all, remember that it is not likely to last forever. By all means, if your doctor thinks it is wise, supplement your child’s diet with vitamins, but know that most picky kids don’t necessarily grow up to be overly fussy adults. Also, I’m sure there is at least one thing that most adults don’t like to eat, so try to exercise some patience with them.

Chef John and Anne made some of the same points in their book and some others which I found myself agreeing with big time as a more “experienced” (yup, older) mom. I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to read it before it was published and highly recommend it.

I was asked if there is a go-to recipe which worked with my whole family when the kids were small, and my daughter reminded me how much they loved spaghetti. This sauce presents the opportunity to blend in “hidden” veggies to make it healthier for picky little ones. A little trickery is a moms prerogative, right?

[Image credit]

The post Advice and a Main Dish Recipe from a Mom of Two Former Picky Eaters appeared first on Flavor | Flavor Combinations | Picky Eaters | Food Kids Love.

One of the first recipes we published on our food blog was a recipe for a pork tenderloin glaze with peaches and sweet tea vodka.  It was a pork tenderloin recipe born out of a discussion we had about how wildly popular the Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka became quickly after it was introduced.

A Very Southern Main Dish Recipe

We are proud Southerners and we love Southern food and flavor elements.  This dish obviously incorporates two of the biggest Southern flavors, peach and sweet tea.  The combination of these flavors with the flavor of the pork is delicious, or as our son recently said, “Amazing delicious!”

But Don’t Take Our Word for It

Here is what our readers have had to say about it:

“…a pork roast recipe that will seriously make you reconsider having turkey for Thanksgiving.”

“I made this last night and it was delicious!”

Get the recipe from our food blog >>

Come back and let us know what you think after you have a chance to try it!

Tips for Cooking Pork Tenderloin

If you’ve never cooked a pork tenderloin before, this video has some great information and tips that you may find helpful:

The post Peach and Sweet Tea Vodka-Glazed Pork Tenderloin Recipe | Chef John’s Signature Recipe appeared first on Flavor | Flavor Combinations | Picky Eaters | Food Kids Love.

On our food blog, we started a vlog series, The Chef’s Table.  So far we have done two videos, and the first one has been so popular, I wanted to share it again here.

I avoid cooking when possible and whenever Chef John offers to do my prep work for me, I happily oblige!  You will see why:

An Easier Way to Chop an Onion

Which way do you chop an onion, like either of the ways shown in the video or a different way?  Any other cooking tips you have or that you are interested in?  Leave a comment below or Ask The Chef here.

The post An easier way to chop an onion! [Demo by Chef John] appeared first on Flavor | Flavor Combinations | Picky Eaters | Food Kids Love.

You’ve been working all day caring for your children, possibly after coming home from a work day to pay the bills that help support them, doing the tasks around the house that need to be done today, paying those bills, running here and there taking care of this and that, and racking your brain for what to cook for dinner.  It takes every ounce of self-control you have in your being to find a suitable response.

[Comic Relief -- n.   1. An amusing scene, incident, or speech introduced into serious or tragic elements, as in a play, in order to provide temporary relief from tension, or to intensify the dramatic action; 2. Relief from tension caused by the introduction or occurrence of a comic element, as by an amusing human foible.]   ~Source~

Tragic?

Okay.  Maybe that’s a tad bit melodramatic, but it sure can feel tragic if it’s been one of those days.  But it is definitely serious or it would not be causing such stress!

Parents of picky eaters, as a rule, I believe, want their children to eat good, healthy foods.  Otherwise, the picky eater adjective probably would not be a part of their parenting vocabulary.

And trust me, I can relate to the feeling of giving up on that goal.  I’ve thought to myself sometimes how much easier this would be if I just gave in and let the child eat whatever she wanted.  Here’s where my stubbornness being a stronger trait in me than in her is a positive!  I am determined about certain things in life, and finding ways to help foster the development of healthy eating habits is one of those things.

If you have reached a point of feeling ready to pull your hair out while trying to find a solution for how to handle your picky eater, look no further!  We may have some recommendations that could give you just the comic relief you need.

For those moments when you feel like giving up, take a deep breath and watch this video.  Not only is it funny.  It will remind you of all the reasons why your end goal is worth the struggle!  Remember Hotpockets?  Chef John introduced me to this clip.  You may not find it as funny as we do, but if you have ever eaten a Hotpocket, I’m thinking you’ll get a kick out of this.

Are you a comic strip fan?  If so, you may know where I’m heading.  You see, after my husband told me about some of these comic strips with picky eater scenarios, I thought…. wow, now that is the picky eaters’ MASCOT!  That’s right.  I’m convinced that they have a mascot.  He must appear to them in dreams and give them lots of ideas.

This is a 6-year-old famous comic strip character who is the ultimate picky eater!  Any guesses?

Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes!

If you’ve never read these comic strips before, they’re good.  Calvin’s creator, we learn on page 131 in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book, was a picky eater, and you can tell.  He knows the drill all too well; although, he does say these strips are an exaggeration of his own fussiness about eating.

Calvin has above average intelligence with an advanced vocabulary and has quite an imagination.  He much prefers to play with his food rather than eat it.  In one of my favorite strips, though, Calvin’s imagination actually works to his mom’s favor with his picky eating.  You can find that one on page 58, also in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book.

We have four books of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, and here is a rundown of those books and where you can find some comic relief:

[Descriptions are mine.]

Whatever you do, don’t let your picky eater anywhere near these until you are certain he/she has outgrown these phases!

If you have not seen our eBook Cookbook, What to Cook for Dinner for Picky Eaters, yet, you may want to check it out for tips, recipes and resources for handling mealtime battles.

The post Comic Relief for Moms with a Picky Eater appeared first on Flavor | Flavor Combinations | Picky Eaters | Food Kids Love.

Head over to check out the customized toppings Chef John created for two of the pies…. good recipes that were perfect paired with the flavors in the pies!

We hope everyone is getting the new year off to a great start.

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Merry Christmas, Everyone! Had to share this beautiful image of some Christmas lights from our area! Our family has been battling flu and infections since a couple weeks before Christmas, so it was fun for us to get out of the house and go see some lights on Christmas Eve.

We hope that you all are enjoying Christmas with your families and some time off from work. 2013 is just around the corner… make your final days for this year count and finish any goals you had for the year. If nothing else, spend a little extra time with your children as you begin making plans for a new year.

The post Merry Christmas! appeared first on Flavor | Flavor Combinations | Picky Eaters | Food Kids Love.

If you would rather go ahead and get your copy, the price is just right at $4.95… click on the link or the image also in the right sidebar and check it out!

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