Weaning The Kids Off Junk

November 11, 2009 :: Posted by - Summer :: Food :: Comments Off

photo credit: TheDeliciousLife

Food is one of my main objectives towards living a better life. It’s also one of the scarier things to think about. What are they putting on my food? What did they do to it before It was packaged? What is in the packaging?

I want us to eat as much real food as possible. Real food, not the prepackaged artificially flavored preservative filled junk. Unfortunately my kids have been accustomed to that kind of food, so switching them over has lead to more than a few complaints. OK, a lot of complaints. And not all from the kids.

White sugar, corn syrup, and many of the additives in foods are addictive. Maybe not mugging people in an ally to get your Twinkies addictive, but there is still a part of our brains that craves these things. We feel bad after going without them, and we feel better once we have eaten them. At least for a little bit. Then we usually crash because our bodies weren’t designed to eat this kind of stuff.

Being in the middle of a big move has made eating real foods hard to do. Everything is in boxes, or still at our old house, and not everything has been turned on at the new house yet. We make it through breakfast and lunch, but by dinner time we are all ready for a break. That usually involves some kind of take-out or quick meal. None of which are (entirely) healthy. We’ve talked about this and plan to cut it out for a long, long time once we are fully moved in.

But I know it’s going to be easier said than done.

Saying no to the sugar coated cereal, to the fruit juice, the prepackaged convenience foods. It’s going to be hard when a craving hits, especially when the one craving it is a bit too young to truly understand why something that feels so good to eat isn’t really good to eat.

So this is where I ask for help. How would you wean young children from junk foods? What would you do to combat the natural cravings and obsessions that are sure to come as they detox?