An Apple a Day or Teaching Nutrition to Tots

Today's post was inspired by Simply Modern Mom's post about the "Choose My Plate" gov. site.

Teaching good eating habits to my kids is easier said then done, my 5 year old son is particularly difficult, he won't eat any fresh fruit and only takes a taste or two of smoothies but he could live off of milk, mac & cheese, and sweets or junk food of any kind.  He's not too bad with his veggies, esp. broccoli but he struggles with trying new things and I'm frustrated with how little fiber he gets.  This is the same boy who used to eat broccoli like it was candy and ate curry anything with gusto when he was two.

My daughter is easy as long as I keep the food coming in small quantities, she'll eat half a doughnut and hand me back the rest but I have to remind her not to eat the seeds in her apple if I didn't cut out the core, it's pretty great.

So out of frustration came inspiration, I would make a "food rocket" that my kids could put together piece by piece with every meal until it is finished at the end of the day when they add the flame on the end so it looks like it's flying.  If they have too many sweets, junk food or don't finish the rocket then they can't add the flame.

Here's my "prototype" for it, I'm working on getting a much cuter version of it.

Here's also a "Food Robot" I threw together at my sons request.

(Speaking of feeding tots, my 6 month old gags on sweet potatoes but adores broccoli. Go figure.)