Creating Balanced Meals Regularly

[Heather in WI]

I'd love to get tips on how you day-in and day-out create balanced meals for your family.

 

By balanced, I mean veggie, fruit, grain, & protein on each plate. Seriously, I'm terrible at this! Even now as I'm planning my grocery list & meals for the week, I'm stuck on day three!

 

I have no problem with protein; we probably eat too much of it as it is! :lol:

 

I'm especially stuck on what to do for fruit besides fruit salad? Cut up an apple and put some slices on everyone's plate?

 

Help! :)

[justasque]

Cut up an apple and put some slices on everyone's plate?

 

 

Yes, and if you arrange it decoratively they'll eat it.

Also, fruit cobbler, fruit crumble, yogurt/berry parfaits, applesauce, and so on.

[Ellie]

I never plan for a fruit at each meal; fruit is usually a snack in our house. But the other stuff...yup, at every meal. Ok, maybe sometimes not a veggie, but mostly, lol.

[Whereneverever]

I have an easier time doing fruit as desserts and snacks then incorporated into a meal.

 

Apples for snacks, berry pie, berries and cream, peaches and pears in cobblers.

 

MMM.

[MelanieM]

In some cases, I think it helps to think of an overall balance for the day (or even the week, with my kids) rather than at every meal. For example, I would never think to serve fruit with dinner, as we tend to eat it more for snacks. And the ideal dinner for me would be protein and a large helping of veggies, possibly with a grain or starch.

 

If you like the standard blend of foods (protein/grain/veg), it can help to plan your meals by looking at each individual element. So Monday is chicken with stir fried veggies over rice, Tuesday is pork with potatoes and green beans, Wednesday is meatballs with pasta and a side salad, etc. So think of your protein, pair it with a grain/starch, then decide what veggies you want to have with it. Sorry if that sounds like an over-simplified answer, but it really helped me to look at it this way when I started cooking meals from scratch... picking my standards and pairing them up this way helped me really expand on my possibilities.

Edited June 4, 2011 by MelanieM

[talk2ham.1]

Funny, but I've been trying to get better about this too. I am trying to put a banana, orange slices, apples, raisins, grapes, or berries on everybody's plates at least for lunch and dinner. Everyone gets lots of broccoli, green beans, and salad in our house . . . because I like them. But with the high prices, fruits have been more haphazard. I'm not quite to the point that we completely "eat a rainbow" of fruits and veggies each day. But we're getting better.

 

As a rule, I usually serve a banana at breakfast; baby carrots, oranges or grapes, and some apples slices at lunch; and a good sized serving green veggies at dinner. We should probably be getting more blue/purple veggies. But the best source for this seems to be berries which are sooooo expensive most of the year.

 

I try to make sure they get too is onions and garlic. It's so healthy to eat onions and garlic. Plus, they make a great seasoning and help reduce dependency on salt.

[Cera]

I aim for balanced over the course of the day rather than balanced at each meal. So we might have eggs and fruit (protein, fruit) for breakfast then salads with grilled chicken(protein, veggies) for lunch and a pasta dish for dinner (grains). Also, if you look at the recommended servings you might be surprised. I was when I looked and realized that we only need 2-3 servings of protein (1 full chicken breast is almost 2 servings). You also only need 2-3 servings of dairy which is fairly easy to get if you have a glass of milk and then a snack of string cheese or yogurt.

[regentrude]

We don't balance each meal. It balances over the course of a day/week.

We usually have veggies with lunch and dinner. We eat fruit for snacks.

[Lady Florida.]

I'm especially stuck on what to do for fruit besides fruit salad? Cut up an apple and put some slices on everyone's plate?

 

 

I often do that, especially in summer. I love serving fruit with dinner. It's easy, everyone loves it, and it gets us some of our fruit servings. You can also cook fruit with your protein. Apples and peaches both go well with pork- pork chops or pork tenderloin.

 

For vegetables you can serve crudites. Just cut up a variety (or even one or two) and serve them raw. If you cook them, just steam them lightly. A lot of steamed vegetables are delicious drizzled with a bit of olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt. Keep it simple and let the flavor of the vegetables shine.

[MamaSheep]

I'm another one who tries to balance servings out over a day, rather than at each meal. I find it easier to do fruit at breakfast. The kids love sliced banana on their cereal, orange slices with their toast, a dish of canned pears with their bagel, that sort of thing. Also, I make parfaits with fruit, yogurt, and granola layered in a fancy glass and they think they're getting gourmet breakfast. And quite often I will make a fruit smoothie by tossing frozen fruit (which I get in big bags from Sam's and just keep in the freezer) in the blender with some milk and a little sweetener. Also, bruit can be added to muffins or pancakes. Smoothies also make good snacks, especially in the summertime. You can puree fruit and freeze it as popsicles too. At lunch I'm trying to more often serve veggies and dip, fruit slices, or finger fruits/veggies (like grapes or cherry tomatoes) where I would normally think to serve chips--they have flavor and crunch, but are much more nutritious. And at supper time I've been trying to sometimes substitute a salad for a starch if we've had a lot of starches already during the day. Also, more fruits and veggies can be worked in by serving fruit or vegetable juice with the meal. A glass of apple juice is usually more than one "serving" of fruit.

 

P.S. One thing that helps me is to clean and cut up veggies right when I bring them home from the store. I too often fall into the trap of not serving them because I'm trying to throw together a quick lunch and it takes too long to peel carrots, or it's been a long day and the last thing I want to have to do is cut up broccoli. If it's clean and cut up and sitting in the fridge then it's just as easy to grab a handful of celery sticks as it is to grab a handful of chips. Not that I do this all the time, but when I do it REALLY helps.

Edited June 4, 2011 by MamaSheep

[justamouse]

I build out meals around veggies, and think of protein as a side dish? Would that help?

[Audrey]

I'd love to get tips on how you day-in and day-out create balanced meals for your family.

 

By balanced, I mean veggie, fruit, grain, & protein on each plate. Seriously, I'm terrible at this! Even now as I'm planning my grocery list & meals for the week, I'm stuck on day three!

 

I have no problem with protein; we probably eat too much of it as it is! :lol:

 

I'm especially stuck on what to do for fruit besides fruit salad? Cut up an apple and put some slices on everyone's plate?

 

Help! :)

 

You can also poach pears and apples and serve them with a sprinkle of cinnamon and honey. Or bake them with the same.

 

Some fruit is very nice grilled, especially pineapple, mango, apples, pears and bananas.

 

Some fruits are very nice added to a green salad, especially oranges, apples, kiwis, dried cranberries or raisins. One of my family's favourite salads is spinach with a dressing of orange juice, lime juice, olive oil and honey, topped with slivers of mango, dried cranberries and toasted almonds.

Edited June 4, 2011 by Audrey

[meggie]

Ideas:

 

Breakfast: usually steel cut oats with milk and some kind of fruit, craisins, bananas, apples and a hard boiled egg

 

or toast with jam and glass of milk (not the best, but it's quick. Someday I can get back to making my own jam w/o sugar)

 

or whole wheat pancakes with fruit topping

 

Lunch: sandwich or wrap. I crockpot chicken once a week and that is used here instead of deli meat. I also buy big bags of spinach from Costco and use that instead of iceburg lettuce. I buy logs of cheddar and slice it myself and put that on the sandwich. I will grate carrots if it's in a wrap or put them on the side if it's a sandwich. I buy bags of broccoli florets, baby carrots, and sugar snap peas from Costco and those goes on the plates (not necessarily all at once, usually one or two) or some cucumber sticks with some salad dressing to dip in. Even my extremely picky eater Digby will eat veggies if he can dip them. Some times I mix fruit with yogurt.

 

For breakfast and lunch I use these trays. If they don't finish all of their meal, the tray gets brought back out when they say they're hungry.

 

Snacks: Occasionally I'll do hummus. Like once a month or so. Usually I'll just do a green smoothie: milk and kefir with spinach plus frozen mango, papaya, strawberry and pineapple (comes in a bag at Costco). They get the smoothie if they've eaten all their breakfast and lunch, I try to make them eat all of that first.

 

Dinner: I've taken to buying ground turkey at Costco. It's 93% lean and only $2.29/lb. It comes in four packages, about 6.5 pounds total. I'll chop four onions and cook each pack with one onion and garlic (also bought in bulk at Costco). Then I'll split all that between 6 quart sized freezer bags and freeze them. I use them for spaghetti sauce (meat, tomatoes, 51% whole grain pasta, and spinach salad), nachos (Food Should Taste Good multigrain chips, meat, pinto beans, sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, guacamole, salsa), Asian Turkey Broccoli Slaw stuff (meat, broccoli slaw, water chestnuts, bamboo, teriyaki sauce served over brown rice or spinach).

 

I'll also slice chicken and cook it with season salt, sliced onions and red peppers and use that for chicken fajitas (chicken, onion, peppers, tortilla, sour cream, cheese, guacamole, salsa, tomatoes).

 

Or I'll do coconut curry (chicken, coconut milk, brown rice, peas, carrots, red peppers).

 

The best way I've found incorporating all these is to just use recipes and add as many veggies as I possibly can. I'll even wilt spinach and add that to scrambled eggs when I make them (which is not too often). Vegetables can go in anywhere. And even recipes that already have some, like chicken noodle soup, I'll add WAAAY more vegetables than the recipe calls for. It usually turns out more like a vegetable stew.

[elise1mds]

Fruit is often a snack around here, too, though I'm getting better at incorporating it into desserts. I sometimes use juice as my fruit serving, too.

 

I don't make myself incorporate everything into every meal, either. That would be way too much effort. My goal is to keep meals as low-fat, low-cholesterol, low-sodium, and organic as possible. Nothing like simplicity, right? ;)

 

Seriously, though, with those goals in mind, it's easy for me to aim for healthier options. If I make feta-stuffed burgers (which are on the menu this week), I'll put the burgers on deli flats instead of regular hamburger buns and instead of fries on the side, I'll serve a salad that is pretossed with the proper amount of dressing.

 

If I ask for meal suggestions and receive one that doesn't meet my health criteria, I'll try to work with it, either modifying the recipe or changing the side dishes to work. A few weeks ago DH asked for schnitzel with spaetzle and German potato salad. That screamed "carb overload," so instead I did beef rouladen, the spaetzle, and red cabbage. DH was willing to let the German potato salad go, but I compromised and added it to the menu in another meal.

 

It has gotten easier to make the meals that we all like and still make them healthier, and I've picked up some good cookbooks, too. That helps more than anything!

[Peela]

I have a default because it was how I was brought up- a protein (meat, soy, lentils, nuts), a carb (mashed poatatoes, roast potatoes, rice, bread, pasta), and vegetables (usually salad, sometimes something like steamed vegies).

So it could be meat/soy pattie, mashed potatoes and peas/salad. Pasta with pesto (has basil and walnuts) and salad.

 

The fruit is always the main in between meal snack.

[texasmama]

In summer, I like to buy a big watermelon, canteloupe, berries and other fruits in season. I also keep apple sauce, canned apricots, canned pineapple and canned mandarin oranges for when we are low on fresh fruit. (canned fruits are in juice only, no syrup) I buy a LOT of organic apples because I have a ds who eats them in favor of other fruits and also because they keep for a long time, unlike bananas. For brekkie, I will peel a banana and put it on everyone's plate. Littlest dd will eat an entire half pint of blackberries at a sitting. I also keep plenty of carrots all the time (baby and large) because they keep a long time and everyone will eat them.

[Mrs Mungo]

I usually do:

 

A fruit and/or veggie with breakfast. Bananas with pancakes or waffles, blueberries in homemade muffins or oatmeal, strawberries with whatever. Veggies like peppers and onions are added to scrambled eggs or potatoes.

 

Lunch and snacks also usually include a veggie or fruit. Apples and cheese, hummus or peanut butter with carrots, pico de gallo and chips, yogurt with fruit, peppers and avocado in our bean burritos, something like that.

 

I usually do at least two veggie servings with dinner.

 

My homemade spaghetti sauce counts as one, we will have salad or green beans with it.

 

Enchiladas are served with black beans or chile rellenos and salad with onions and avocado.

 

Baked chicken might be served with potatoes and spinach salad with strawberries and craisins.

 

The other night I made tilapia that had a tomato/orange sauce with olives in it. I served it with orzo that had tomatoes, onions, artichoke hearts and such in it.

 

We frequently have melon with any meal in the summer.

 

I make a fresh corn salad in the summer that has heirloom tomatoes and avocado and such.

[Heather in WI]

Oh my gosh, ladies. This is fantastic!!! Thank you!

 

I don't know why, but fruit on the plate cut-up didn't seem ... right. But, we had grapes tonight and everyone loved it! We're going to have orange wedges for lunch tomorrow.

 

I love the idea of desserts, too! That didn't even occur to me! Berries were on sale today, so I'm planning a triple berry pie with graham cracker crust for tomorrow & Monday evenings.

 

I'm excited about all of the other ideas thrown out & can't wait to try them! Grilled fruit? Sounds YUM-o! Parfaits and smoothies? Ooh!! Berries for our cereal? Nice. My family is already thanking everyone. :)

 

Cutting up veggies ahead of time is a great idea. I'm ashamed to tell you how many times I've thrown food out because it seemed like a great idea at the grocery store, but I never could quite get to it during the week. I just cut up the broccoli, carrots, and celery & put it in a container to make sure that it's not wasted this week.

 

I have to subscribe to this so I can find it easily to refer back when I forget all of this. :)

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!