Growing a Good Eater Series: Day 2: Rainbow Eating

At the Market
The thought of taking three kids to the grocery store does not exactly excite me.

However, taking one or two of them at a time can be a really great experience.  And if I must, I make all three work.  What I'm about to suggest though obviously works better 1-on-1.

The way we eat involves quite a bit of explanation - not just to other adults taking care of our kids, but to our kids, themselves.  We're well into the stage of asking why...and the most popular question lately seems to be: "who eats that?" We see all this food at the store and pick over most of it, telling the boys it's not good for our body so they're wondering, well then who eats it?

Without being judgmental, I have to tell them, "some people...but not us."

That of course is followed by the question of "why?" So instead of getting into a conversation with a six-year-old about high fructose corn syrup and the dangers of artificial additives, I try to re-route to talking about what we do choose to put in our bodies.  One of my jobs as a mom is to teach my kids how to make educated decisions - and that includes with food.

A very visual and kid friendly way of helping us shop is what I like to call "Rainbow Eating."  This really only addresses produce but it's still a fun way to teach the kids about good food choices.

Above is my very high class template ;).  Feel free to copy it.

It's really pretty simple; make a rainbow and bring some crayons.  You can also use a page protector and dry erase crayons to make it reusable.

As you pick out produce, color the section of the rainbow.  Try to get diverse, as well.  Instead of the obvious red apples, how about peppers?

The goal of course is to have a full rainbow by the time you leave the produce section (and then some!).

At Home
We do a very similar thing at home, but it's more of a team approach.  At meal time we try to take a minute to look at what's being served.  We mention the texture, the shape and the color.  When someone eats a produce item, we talk about what color of the rainbow to fill in.  The boys love doing this and will yell out, "brother ate something yellow!"

Our goal at home of course is to try color in every section of the rainbow by dinner.

A fun way to get a lot of colors filled in on your rainbow is to have fruit kabobs as a snack.  I cut and lay out the fruit and they make their own kabobs.  You can easily do this with veggies, as well.

You can use candy sticks for the skewers.  I'm thrifty so when we got an Edible Arrangement, I hung on to the sticks just knowing they'd come in handy for something.

This is a yummy fine motor skill activity.

You can also make them ahead and freeze them for a great summer treat.

Follow the rainbow to better eating!

A great book to read with your kids along with this step: Planting a Rainbow

This post is a part of a series.  To play catch up, see Growing a Good Eater: Day 1: Kids in the Kitchen