Getting the whole family to eat healthily can be difficult. With the increasing fever-pitch speed of our modern world, grabbing take-out and gorging on fast food are becoming exceedingly common. In fact, according to Daily Life, the family dinner is practically dying out.

 We all know how important it is to eat healthily. After all, the food you eat fuels your day-to-day living. If you don’t get the nutrients your body needs, you can put yourself at risk for various diseases and disorders. However, putting that knowledge into practice can be extremely difficult.

You want you and your family to eat healthily, but how do you go about that in today’s modern world? Here are some tips you might want to consider.

Grill Out 

Compared to some other cooking methods, grilling is a decently healthy way to cook your meals. You can grill about anything, from meat to vegetables to fruits. Not all grilling methods, though, are the same. There is a healthy way to grill if you’re aiming to be healthy. Generally, you should try to grill your meats below 325 degrees Fahrenheit. If you cook your meat above that, a group of cancer-causing chemicals called HCAs can form.

This does not mean that you should avoid grilling altogether though. When done correctly, grilling is a fast and easy way to whip up a healthy weeknight dinner. Grilling allows you to quickly cook lean meats, vegetables, and create a healthy, grilled desert very quickly.

Food Network recommends marinating your meat before grilling to add extra flavor and tenderize your meat. Marinating your meat also protects it from charring and reduces the build-up of HAA, another chemical that has been linked to cancer.

Of course, you should always take safety measures into account when grilling. Both gas and charcoal grilling require safety to be held in the utmost regard. The last thing you want is for an accident to occur while you’re cooking. 

Grow Your Food

Gardening is a wonderful way to grow healthy foods in your backyard. Unlike common misconceptions, gardening really doesn’t take that much time, and the benefits it produces make any time spent gardening exceedingly worth it.

Gardening not only gets you active and outside, but it also provides ready access to healthy foods. You are more likely to eat what you grow, and this extends to your children as well. By allowing your children to help you in the garden, you increase the chance that they’ll eat the nutrient-rich vegetables grown there. 

There are other benefits of gardening for children as well. Gardening gets children outside and moving. Spending lots of time outdoors is great for a child’s health and can prevent everything from behavioral problems to vision impairments.

Gardening also introduces children to science. Nothing can teach a child about science better than actually getting out in nature and watching natural forces at work.

Plan Ahead

You should try to set time aside each week to plan your meals. We are more likely to order take-out or run through a fast-food restaurant on the way home from work if we don’t have anything planned for dinner. By explicitly planning healthy meals for each day, you can help your family make healthier eating decisions.

Meal planning can also help you save time in the kitchen. If you already know what you’re planning to cook each night of the week, you can do a lot of the prep work ahead of time. Prepping meals on the weekend or when you have free time allows you to quickly throw healthy meals together when you are busy and prevents you from turning to fast-food alternatives.

Eating healthy can be difficult in our fast-paced, modern world, but it is far from impossible. By choosing healthy cooking styles such as grilling, growing your healthy foods, and planning ahead, you can make eating healthily more accessible for the whole family.

Credit

We'd like to thank our guest author Jenny for the article. Jenny is a homeschooling mom to four children, one of whom is autistic. She and her husband made the decision to home-educate when their oldest was four years old. During this journey, they have expanded their family and faced many challenges along the way, but they have experienced great rewards.