Is there any parent out there who doesn’t have trouble getting their kids to eat healthy? Or getting them to eat everything on their plate?
The little buggers always seem to have their tastebuds geared towards sugar, or if not then selectively whatever you don’t have to hand. And if, like me, you have two of them at home it can be double the frustration as what one likes the other hates. It makes feeding them a nightmare!
Well, while dinner times might still be an onerous chore for their mother and I, I have at least figured out a way to get them to eat their lunch with nary a complaint every single day. No, I haven’t given in and let them have junk food, I have discovered the Power of the Platter!
Yep, no more making sandwiches they only eat half of. No more trying to get fruit down their gobs only for them to whine “I don’t wanna!” By giving them a wide selection of tucker to choose from, making sure it’s all near bite size and letting them pick what they eat first and at their own pace, I find they end up eating most everything! Plus when they get bored of one ingredient, you just swap it out for another with minimal fuss.
Let’s have a look at a platter I made for my son:
And now one for my daughter:
To ensure they are getting all the nutrients their little bodies need I always make sure to put in:
(Cubed Cheddar Cheese, Sliced Tasty Cheese, Occasional tub of Yoghurt, Glass of Milk)
*At least one kind of meat
(Sliced Ham, Sliced Chicken, Tuna)
*At least one kind of plain cracker (even plain ones are seen as a treat!) and/or piece of non-white bread.
I also find that it pays to put in one (cheap) food that you know they are not really keen on. For my kids that’s sultanas – they don’t hate them but don’t really love them either. By putting that on their plate and then ‘letting them off’ from eating it, it gives them a feeling of ownership in deciding what they do and do not consume from their platters. That sense of control means they eat the rest more eagerly without it seeming like a chore to them.
By following this pattern, and changing up the ingredients used, it’s turned into a very effective way of getting a bit of everything my kids need to eat into their bellies each lunchtime without it becoming a major battle. I hope it works for you too!
Got any other tips on how to get kids to eat healthy? Would love to read them in the comments section below!
‘Hey Big Angry Trev, I see all over the internet you showing off how you’ve been losing all this weight! Well how about ya share the secret how with the rest of us eh? Or is it all bullshit and you’ve had a bunch of airbrushed photos done like all the other celebrities – thought you were better than that man’
Well, this reads more of an accusation than a question but I guess what this person is asking is ‘How have I been losing weight?’ It’s true, I’ve been losing nearly a kilo a day recently. I didn’t even realize until my pants felt loose that I was dropping such weight and now it’s quite evident as you can see from this unaltered picture:
If you say this picture doesn’t turn you on then you are a damn liar!
So how have I been doing it? Well, no real secret formula that any doctor wouldn’t recommend anyway. It’s just been a change in lifestyle. Since moving a few weeks ago I have:
Cut out alcohol and energy drinks
Eaten more often
Eaten smaller portions
That’s pretty much it! But let’s take you through what I am eating in an average day:
7.30am
Coffee – no diet should exclude coffee – EVER!
Cup of coffee with milk and 2 sugars
8.30am
Breakfast
Two slices of toast with vegemite and a glass of orange juice
12.00pm
Lunch
Sandwich: 2 slices of cheese, 3 slices of ham and a healthy dollop of Dijon mustard – all on light rye bread and with a pint of water.
3.00pm
Afternoon Tea
A banana, a few crackers or cruskits and a can of sugar-free coke
6.00pm
NOT what you should eat, but what you certainly want to (recipe HERE)
Here I can’t provide a regular photo of what I have as what I have changes nightly. What I can say is what has changed is not so much what I eat but what’s it’s made of and the portion sizes. And that is because lately my wife has been doing the majority of the cooking. Why does that make a difference? Well, let’s compare what we put in both our mashed potato recipes:
Her:
3 Medium Potatoes
Skim Milk
Margarine
Me:
4 Large Potatoes
Full Cream Milk
Cheddar Cheese
Butter
Salt & Pepper
Gravy on top
So with her cooking it’s proved a lot healthier (and she has the skill of making healthy food delicious which is something I had never thought to master) and because the portions are smaller it means I am eating a lot less, since I also used to eat the leftovers on my kids plates as well.
9.00pm
The most g-rated nightcap ever
Cup of soup
So as you can see, I’m not exactly starving myself. Also I’m not eating super-mega healthy either. But what I am doing is eating throughout the day which keeps my metabolism going, rather than just eating a huge lunch and dinner and nothing else. Also I’m only having a beer on a Friday night instead of 3 or 4 every night and no energy drinks whatsoever. Combine this with the smaller portion sizes and I’ve been shedding kilos like a mangy wombat does lice!
Oh, and exercise? Well, yeah, ya gotta move your arse to shrink it. But as a hobby farmer and father of two I never sat still long anyway so I don’t think that has contributed much to my weight loss. At most it may be that since I haven’t been smoking the last few weeks, I’m not sitting down for 5 minutes an hour to light one up so I’m doing 1/12th more activity per day than before.
So yeah, go lose some weight! It’s really not hard. And if you can’t seem to manage it there are always other options. If you are a guy just grow a huge beard to balance it out and give you that husky lumberjack look. If you are a gal, just have the fat liposuctioned out from where you don’t want it and then stuck into your breasts where everyone will want it – both easy fixes! Good luck y’all!
Got some weight-loss tips of your own? Would love to read them in the comments section below!
Ah the classic Scarecrow, truly a mainstay of peoples vegetable patches over the years. Scarer of birds and amuser of children. In the Wizard of Oz it was someone desperately in need of a Higher Education degree, in Worzel Gummidge’s case it was an inanimate pile of straw turned sentient being who was constantly trying to get his end away with a store manikin. The Scarecrow is a bit of fun that adds some colour to your vege patch but as most folks know it is generally highly ineffective at actually scaring birds. However today I am going to teach you Big Angry Trev’s secret to building a Scarecrow that actually works! And the good news is, it’s actually easier to make than the classic one!
I’m the slightly skinnier one
You will need the following materials:
One 1.8m x 15cm x 3cm board
One 1.5m x 15cm x 3cm board
One 40cm x 5cm x 3cm board
One 2 meter metal stake
4 wood screws
One potplant pot, bright for preference
One pile of plastic wrapping
One pair of pants with elastic waistband, synthetic and red for preference
One adult males top, synthetic and red for preference
One pair of gloves
One cap, red for preference
Bailing twine
Tools
One drill
One permanent marker
One sledgehammer
Now a lot of these material choices may seem weird to your classic Scarecrow constructor, but I will explain my reasoning for these choices at the end.
Step One:
Pop the 1.5m board through the tops sleeves. So that it sticks out either end evenly. Put the 1.8m board through the top so that at least 40cm of it pokes out the neck hole. Screw the two pieces together.
Step Two:
Put the gloves on, going over the cuffs of the sleeves and ends of the wood. Tie in place with bailing twine.
Step Three:
Strech the pants over the piece of wood, the wood should be long enough that when you stretch the elastic waist band over it that the band snaps back over it and holds it in place. Screw the short piece of word about 2 inches above where the clothing top ends, through the pants at the back which will help hold them up.
Step Four:
Take your pot and draw a face on it (you can go for scary but this really won’t make much difference to the birds and may scare your kids so I go for friendly). Pop a hat on the top. Stick on the top of your Scarecrow and take a bunch of plastic wrapping or old plastic bags and stuff inside to help secure in place.
To size your pot, simply use the bonce of any passing child as a measuring guide The term ‘Villawood’ should scare away both birds and anyone with a sense of morals
Step Five:
Hammer your metal stake in. Tie your scarecrow in at least two different points to the stake using bailing twine.
Ta-da! You have yourself a Scarecrow!
Nothing scares birds more than a fat guy wearing fashions from 2002
Why Big Angry Trev’s Scarecrow is more effective than the classic design
*The Clothing is Polyester instead of Cotton: It will hold moisture less and be more resistant to the elements, therefore less inclined to rot or weigh down you Scarecrow so it falls over due to water logging.
*The head is Plastic: No rot at all compared to a stocking filled with straw
*No Straw – Point 1: Everyone insists that you stuff the body and limbs with straw in order to fatten your scarecrow. No matter what people say, straw will eventually rot. This will cause your scarecrow to literally come apart at the seams quicker.
No Straw – Point 2: By not stuffing your Scarecrow with straw, it means that the clothing will flutter in the wind. This means movement and movement is far more likely to disturb encroaching birds than a completely stationary effigy.
Bright Colours: Some people actually say birds are colour blind. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact humans are practically colour blind compared to birds, in the same way our sense of smell cannot compare to that of a dogs. Birds have evolved to recognize that the red of certain flowers and fruit is OK, but for the most part they stay away from red because in nature red more often than not means DANGER! Your traditional Scarecrow is made up of browns and yellows natural and non-threatening colours. By making it have a lot of red, it will have a much greater likelyhood of scaring off these feathered fiends from your hand-grown, home grown veggies.
Boards instead of Broomsticks: Who the frag keeps breaking off the ends of their broomsticks so that they have spares just lying around? Who sweeps that hard? By using boards and wood screws rather than broomsticks and twine your Scarecrow will have far better structural integrity.
So will this Scarecrow actually keep birds off your veggies and away from your fruit tree’s? Debatable. I know my chooks give it a wide berth but then they aren’t terrified of it either. If birds are a massive problem then netting or, going to the extreme, a timed scare gun will be more effective. But those options are either loud or expensive or both. Scarecrow’s add a bit of kitchy charm to your veggie patch and they are great fun to build with your kids so considering the relative inexpensiveness and simplicity of their construction they can be forgiven for not inciting mass terror amongst birds. However this Scarecrow has a better fighting chance than most, and I’ve not seen a crow after my silverbeet after popping my rotund fellow up.
