Deconstruct Your Meals

If you like me have many different appetites to please in any single meal, I would suggest adopting my concept of a deconstructed family meal. Otherwise, things in my house become too complicated. This is not always possible or necessary, but I like to keep most of the dinner elements separate. For instance, in this particular meal I have Cuban style black beans, rice, corn, smoky lime grilled chicken, grated cheese, salsa, & corn tortillas. Okay, I like beans, chicken, corn, salsa & tortillas. Pearl & Dave like the works. Ellis likes beans with cheese melted on top, chicken, & corn tortillas. June will eat cheese quesadillas with the corn tortillas and cheese, beans & rice on the side. This may seem complicated but it really serves multiple purposes. First, everyone is happily fed. Second, all the leftovers are lunch ready, and I truly believe that by involving your kids in the food “they” put together, it creates a healthy relationship with food. We seem to have avoided the dinner table battles at my house that I feel leave a negative connection to food and simultaneously avoided building the black and white mindset of healthy versus unhealthy. If you have a child who only eats white rice, buy the best organic white rice and let he or she choose different things to flavor the rice. This will eliminate the unnecessary pressure, and most likely the child will evolve and start to experiment with new foods. Don’t get into the bad habit of giving your child prepackaged frozen foods because you feel this is your only option and better than nothing. This is not the way to develope life long good eating habits. Cheers, Carol