Most meal preparation is 90% planning ahead.
- Plan to eat with your child
- You should be eating the same food you feed your child. It may need to be modified for him to chew it at first, by cooking it more and mashing or cutting it into small pieces.
- It isn’t necessary to cook different foods for different family members, and it is better if you are all eating the same general menu.
- Be creative and flexible. Buy freshly cooked food from the market take out counter if time is a problem.
- Use fresh or frozen precut vegetables. Frozen vegetables take only minutes to cook
- Canned fruit is a great option for fresh
- Some suggestions for variety at meals, including no more than 4 choices:
- A carbohydrate dish, such as pasta, rice, potatoes, polenta, cereal, quinoa.
- Protein, served either with or separate from the carb dish, such as peanut or cashew butter, beans, fish, meat, poultry or tofu.
- Dairy foods, such as yogurt, cheeses or milk.
- Something that slides down easily, such as apple sauce, pudding or soup.
- Vegetables, either raw or cooked
- Something crunchy, like popcorn, raw vegetables such as celery, or crackers.
- Fruit: fresh, canned or cooked, like baked apples.
- Serve bread with every meal.
- A little fat, such as salad dressing with the celery, butter with bread, gravy with the potatoes.
