"Eat! Eat! Eat!"

Please remember, this is just stuff we buy to keep in our house for her and this is her "normal,everyday" meals. She IS a kid, and she DOES get treats, But we don't let her go buck wild with eating everything, especially the things that have proven to be unhealthy and bad for you. She's never had a french fry before, and she probably wont ever have a "real" hot dog in her childhood. But those are OUR choices for her, and what WE believe is best for her. We would NEVER LOOK DOWN on someone for feeding their child differently than we do. WE are choosing to feed her this way because we feel that it is our responsibility to nourish her, and teach her to make healthy choices. If she has been raised on the healthy stuff, she will more than likely choose the healthy stuff on her own.When she's old enough to understand, we'll teach her WHY we feed her this way, and that food is meant to nourish us and make her healthy, but bad choices can make her sick and cause other problems, but that it's okay to enjoy the bad stuff in moderation! If one day as an adult she decides she hates healthy food and wants to eat chocolate cake everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner, that's her choice, but Mike and I will feel good knowing WE did all we could and we taught her about healthy foods, and to make healthy choices. Mike and I still have A LOT to change in our own diets, but were getting there little by little with her as our tiny motivator! :) 


I get a lot of questions about how we feed Miah.  I thought i'd jot down for the day what she ate so you could see how I balance her meals, and what typical meals look like for her! We try very hard to balance her meals. We try to give her a variety of meat, dairy, carbs, fresh fruits & veggies so she's not eating too much of one thing in a day. The only exception to this is fruit & veggies... we allow her to have as many in a day as she'd like. (and no, too much fruit doesn't constipate her, i believe this has to do with the probiotics!)



Breakfast 
Milk (with probiotic dissolved in it)
Whole wheat pancakes with flax seed & blueberries. A little butter.

Morning Snack #1
Banana

Morning Snack #2
Dried fruit
Raisins

Lunch
Cottage Cheese
Fresh Fruit (Watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes)

Afternoon Snack #1
Triscuits & Laughing cow Garden vegetable cheese

Afternoon Snack #2
Dried peas & corn
Apple Chips

Dinner
Baked Chicken.
Mixed Veggies


Miah always drinks water and she has milk (Lactaid) 1-2x a day. She doesn't get any juice. The only exception to this, is when she's sick I'll juice my own orange juice, or i'll give her "simply orange" orange juice. She'll only have about 1/4 of a cup of juice though. Otherwise, all she drinks is water, and we keep that available to her all throughout the day. If I notice she is too busy playing and hasn't drank in awhile i'll hand her cup to her and encourage her to drink a little bit.

I've mentioned before, we buy organic. This is a personal choice for us. The important things we get organic are meats, dairy (as much as we can find!), and the dirty dozen produce. We have given up a lot of the processed stuff in order to give Miah the organic stuff. For us, it works.

Don't get me wrong, we have stuff on hand like boxed mac n cheese, or frozen chicken nuggets for when we run out of other stuff, or when im just plain feeling lazy and don't feel like being in the kitchen!

Other favorites for Miah are:
- Homemade mac n cheese (just whole wheat pasta with cheese and butter) very easy and the ingredients are simple.
- Homemade chicken nuggets ... they can then be frozen and heated in the oven so it's just as easy as store bought!
- Sweet potato, plain or with butter & cinnamon. (Tip: These do NOT need to be organic, as they are not sprayed. Regular potatoes are VERY high in pesticides and we buy those organic)
- Granola
- Popcorn (I'll buy indiana popcorn cinnamon & sugar and she loves it...the ingredients are very simple and it tastes great!)
- Stacy's cinnamon sugar pita chips
- Chamomile tea (She'll get this at night instead of Milk if she's sick or coughing a lot... we put some honey in it and a splash of milk...she enjoys it!)
- Toast (Whole wheat bread & butter)
- "Fries" (Which aren't really fries..but if you slice a potato very thin, coat it in olive oil, pepper, a little salt , rosemary and parmesean cheese, then bake it...it gets very crispy and "fry" like and she LOVES them!)
- Quinoa
- Kale chips (Just bake fresh kale with salt & pepper)
- Any sort of dried fruit. Dried Mango, and apple are her two favorites!


Hope this helps, and maybe gave you some other ideas on foods to feed your kiddo. It's always a challenge to find new, and healthy foods! If you have any suggestions on healthy foods that your toddler loves, please let me know, i'd love to find more things to give her!