Help! How to slowly wean child into raw, or at least vegan...

[Rawsome Ginger]

I wanted to see if anyone has ideas on breakfasts,lunches for school, snacks and dinner ideas for a typical SAD eating child. From bacon to raw?? What do you do in between to not make it a nightmare. I have to do it for health reasons for him and need help!

[DavidZaneMason]

Opinion:

-As a parent or guardian...you can only elicit the child's cooperation. Be a good example. Stock only healthy foods in the house.....and/or give the child a small allowance at the store so that he / she can start determining a portion of their own diet as soon as possible. Encourage this. Provide a HUGE variety of the fresh fruits, nuts, & vegetables that you love - and that they have indicated they prefer.

-Cut fruit...or veggies with dip make excellent lunchtime fare....as does fresh juices.....and terrific mixed salads of all kinds. Dried fruit and nut mixes can be great snacks.

-Just some suggestions.

-David Mason

[rawpriestess]

Well, if you truly wish to help them for health reasons, I'd say go cold turkey, and be done with it, however this may not go over well.


So, you can start by using substitutes for things, like make an omelet in stead of fried eggs, and only use one egg andfill with massive amounts of veggies, and no cheese. or better yet, make a breakfast burrito out of Alissa's enchiladas, they are excellent, with lots of fresh salsa and cashew sour cream.

make raw jams, and crackers, have lots of fresh fruit juice handy, and fruit leather.

make sure to give them already cut up fruit in their lunch box, and a small salad, lots of dips and almond butter to dip in, and carrot sticks and celery and raisins and dried fruits.

olives are great, make crackers and spreads, make them raw pizza at dinner and spaghetti, rawviolies are great, pesto stuffed mushrooms are good too, my granddaughters love my raw foods, and they eat alot of fast food when not with me. so I know alot of kids WILL eat well, if given the chance.

just make sure to NOT have junk around, and ONLY have good food around, already ready, that is the key, make it convenient for them.

[dreamrawalwz]

Banana, avocado, or other smoothies! Green smoothies could go either way with children. Either they'll LOVE the green color or think it's freaky haha! Juices. As others said fresh fruit and veggies readily available. Raw granola and trail mixes, easy things like that.

[juliebove]

My daughter had to drastically change her diet due to food allergies. What we did was go through the kitchen and either throw away or give away everything she was allergic to with the exception of the things my husband or I would still eat. Those things were put in a high cupboard or put in a separate refrigerator. I bought a small refrigerator just for her and also a storage unit and card table for storing her food. I only used the card table because I already had it. One day I need to get a better system like a big cabinet, but this works for now. She was shorter when we learned of the allergies and I want her food to be at a height that she can reach without difficulty.

She is not 100% raw, although she has always eaten some raw food and continues to do so. She is just eating a little more of it. She is learning to like salads. She loves RP's brownies, the onion bread and some raw fruits and veggies. She seems to be more inclined to eat the fruits and veggies at home and not school, although she will eat raisins and nuts there. She loves raw pumpkinseed bars and pumpkinseed butter. She loves Boomi bars (not raw) so we tried the Prana bars (raw) but she hated them. I think perhaps it's because of the fruit used to stick the bars together. Don't remember the ingredients because I threw them all out. We tried a raw flax bar that I bought yesterday and neither of us liked it. Too much fruit in it for us. Neither of us like sweet foods very much.

[Conscious Midwife]

My toddler are high raw and mostly vegan.
I find they eat what is available.

The have discrimainating taste when it comes to milk or burgers offered by others... which they avoid

but of course don't differentiate between Kashi Crackers, Fruit loops or Organic Corn Chips... it's all a snack to them

The love y frozen raw treats but aren'tbig o carrotjuice unless it's mixed with apple or poured over ice to thin it.

They also seem to instictively mono eaters. I labor over huge creative salads and they stand in the kitchen eating bowls of cuccumbers, tomatoes, handfuls of pecans and then their lettuce seperate. They usually just stand at the counters edge eating while I'm prepping.

On occassion i've come home to find al my cherry/ grape tomatoes consume by toddlers in one sitting or various fruits with bites taken out of them. Additionally my 2.5 yr old son can eat three bananas in one sitting if you let him.

oh yeh and the love avacdo dip

[banana shake]

I am in a similar situation; my kids are 7, 5, 3, & 1. The one year old is no problem- he'll eat anything (!), but the three girls are quite picky & say they hate vegetables.

I've had luck with smoothies for all of them. Some of their favorites:

* orange juice with a couple bananas & frozen strawberrie

* pineapple juice with frozen strawberries

* orange juice with frozen mango, vanilla, cinnamon & cardamom.

It doesn't take long to make the smoothies if you juice ahead of time & just throw it all in the blender when they're hungry. My kids think they're getting a "treat" when they have these, & if this is all they eat for a meal, I'm fine with it. Hope this helps!

[Sharon in Colorado]

How old is the child? The younger the child, the easier it is.

I'd add fruit to the usual breakfast for a week or so. Then one day just omit the bacon or whatever and offer extra fruit and/or smoothie.

After you get breakfast down, add carrots, celery, jicama sticks, bell pepper strips, etc. and more fruit to the lunch meal. Change the white bread to wheat, and then a more "wholesome" wheat. Then sprouted bread, etc. Change the lunch meat to the soy stuff, and then gradually get rid of that.

Have a fruit meal for dinner 1-2 times a week. None of my kids ever groaned about that, there was usually more groans over rice and veggies, but never fruit. They LOVE fruit. Now, sometimes they don't eat quite enough so either I have to leave all the fruit plates out for a couple of hours, or they will end up snacking on something else.

[Boysenberry]

THere are some really great ideas here. I have six children and one on the way. They are all at different places in their raw journey. Some made the leap and prefer raw to anything else and some begged for pancakes when I made bananas smoothies for breakfast. For the family I cut out what seemed to be the most damaging first, dairy. I did everything else the same but no more dairy (due to allergy reactions).

The next step I took was to eliminate meat. We had already eliminated junk and most processed foods... although if grandparents were about, it would slip back in...

I am currently trying to eliminate wheat products. (bread, crackers, tortillas) My husband still craves and wants this stuff and still gives it to the kids, but I really think at least one of my children has an aversion to wheat.

Also, I started out over the summer to give them raw breakfast and lunch and then at dinner they could have a cooked one. Gradually, I substituted in a raw dinner. We are up to about 4 raw meals per week at night. The funniest experience I have had with this is they asked for pizza. Me being 8 months pregnant and tired, gave in and ordered pizza. My four younger ones all came in, one by one, and told me that the pizza was hot and could they please have a banana instead? LOL It was great.

I absolutely agree with the others that you put the choices out. I have a low children's table in my kitchen that I cover with fruit. That is where they go for snacks. I found that if I take them to the store with me and let them choose something to try it makes them more open to what is available. sometimes I will just let them choose what fruit they want this week. (it doesn't have to be something they have never tried) With six kids, a fairly big variety comes home! Make it a wonderful exciting journey for her too...

My biggest opposer, my 16 year old son, seems to get into eating raw the best if he helps with creating the food in the kitchen. I made a raw chinese dish and had him make the sauce, taste it, adjust. He was the biggest eater of that meal that night. My sister has had similar responses to her meals when she includes her kids. (she has 6 too)

Good luck, keep us posted on what works for you! ;)