"You don't have to like it but you do have to try it"

So, I thought I would talk about how our meals work. What do we say? How is the food served?

So first off, we do serve our meals as prescribed in the Francophile parenting books. I think Druckerman's book "Bringing up Bebe" does a great job (sometimes in painful detail) about how they serve their food. Depending on the meal, we serve each part in "courses" (now I realize this sounds uber pretentious but I promise it's not. Especially if you think of the courses as "education courses".) Each course is a chance to discuss the food, talk about it, ask if it was prepared differently than the last time, how does it taste and most importantly to slow down!

This is how we eat our meals:

(of course we can't always do this ie. if we are eating out or if a casserole that has everything in it etc)

BREAKFAST

1st course- Carb/protein 

2nd course- Fruit

LUNCH

1st course- vegetable 

2nd course- protein*

3rd course- cheese*

4th course- fruit*

GOUTER

Healthy snack (or this is when we eat dessert)

DINNER

1st course- vegetable

2nd course- protein/carb

3rd course- fruit

(4th course- only in special cases do we eat a dessert at this time of day, and if my husband and I want one, we wait till the kids are asleep but that's not healthy either haha)

* at the lunch meal, sometimes we make a sandwich that has cheese on it and I make a judgement call if it's enough cheese for the meal. Also, I am sometimes lazy and serve the fruit and cheese course together. My husband and I are huge wine, cheese, and fruit dinner people and my kids usually eat the cheese so quick it's more time efficient to just serve them together.

PS- my meal plan has each course on the far left with abrivations of the above. It helps me keep my meals ordered and it is also beneficial for meal planning and not being wasteful. Feel free to print it out (below) and try it for a while. Let me know how it goes. 

We serve the first course on the plates (then we put the next courses to their plates as we eat our way to each course) I usually place the next courses in front of me (if George is working) or around the table family style if he's home. 

This is what a typical breakfast looks like for us. (Minus the princess crowns but hey! It was fun!) 

As you can see: the girls are in their chairs, I have my meal ready, (this particular morning I was having eggs instead of the bagel because I eat low carb) we usually eat the same things.

The girls eat their portion of the bagel first, then once they are finished with it or have had enough they can ask for the fruit (strawberries in the mason jar= food keeps longer and I am more inclined to eat it if it looks cute! again I am an aesthetic snob)

If they don't at least taste the bagel they don't "unlock" or they haven't received their "key" for the next course. (If you want, you could turn this into a really cute game/ visual to help reaffirm the steps, like hand each kid a ticket or key after they taste each course to then pass to the next course.) Again, constantly saying "you don't have to like it but you do have to try it". 

We go through each meal like this. It's a blast to talk about the food and if there is ever any resistance, we treat it as nonchalantly as possible. Food shouldn't ever cause a fight but rather drive a good conversation. 

One thing that we have hand to change with the method is to not keep giving the kids (letting them fill up on) the one course they like.

This was our problem: 

Me- "kenz, taste your spinach, it is bright and fresh"

Kenz- "no momma"

Me- "remember you don't have to like it...."

Kenz- "but you do have to try it.. But I don't want to"

Me- "that's fine kenz, but you will be very hungry because if you don't taste the spinach, you won't unlock the Mac n cheese"

-kenz tastes it, makes an out-of-body sound and one of those Beyoncé performance grimaces

Kenz- "all done!"

- I put her portion of the Mac n cheese on her plate, then few minutes later, 

Kenz- " all done! may I have the grapes."

Me- "sure! Here you go"

- give her an appropriate amount of grapes and she finishes them

Kenz- "all done! I want more grapes and Mac n cheese"

- AND I give her more.... Bah! Why? She hasn't eaten all of her spinach yet but she did taste it so she was keeping to the rules. Man, I got played by a 2 year old! And often. It's not my proudest confession. 

Soultion: We had to become more mindful and purposeful with their (and our) portions. This isn't only to guarantee that they are getting the appropriate amounts of each food group but also a plate that is manageable to clear. 

So our new rule was- if you wanted more of any course (1-4), you had to finish all of the courses first and clear your plate. (Parents-try this yourself and tell me if you go back for a dinner roll, all I know is that my own rule stopped me)

Does this work every time? Nope. There are still some days we barely make it to the fruit course with more than a taste of my yummy coconut chicken but a finished portion of kenz' fancy pickles (balsamic cucumbers in my trusty mason jars) Will she be hungry? You bet! And you known what? She catches up and she eats better the next day (or sometimes a few days after). 

So give it a shot. Tell me what challenges you have and what successes also. Remember "you don't have to like it but you do have to try it"

-Bon Chance Mon Ami