Tips for Healthy Family Eating

With the spotlight on healthier eating for kids, such as the White House Garden and Michelle Obama's charge to tackle childhood obesity, what's your advice on how to get families on track?

Concentrate on eating real, fresh foods and avoiding foods that are processed. Find good foods that your kids enjoy and emphasize those, but don't be afraid to put your foot down and let your kids go hungry for a while if all they want is junk food. Sooner or later, they'll come around and eat what you give them. When liver was for dinner and I wasn't happy, mom and dad would just say, "Well you can just go hungry then," and the first few times I tried not eating and you can imagine what that was like. I learned to like liver, and as an adult I love it! Seasonal foods at the peak of flavor always taste better, so if you want to get your kids into broccoli, find good broccoli in season, and they'll learn to like it. Same with tomatoes, radishes, etc. It goes for any seasonal food. In enough time, they will look forward to trying new foods as they realize there's a lot to choose from.
-Paul Fehribach, Executive Chef/Owner of Big Jones

Tell kids and parents where obesity starts. Re-organize and teach kids how exercising is important in life. And then push it more and give them knowledge; water, real meat, fish, vegetables, etc. Teach parents and family that it starts at the younger age. And why bad food is cheaper than healthy food, it is another debate, but has so much impact on the population. Think about it, how come a bottle of soda is cheaper than a bottle of water?
-Jerome Bacle, Executive Chef of Courtright's

Eat together at the table; one healthy serving per person. No eating in front of the TV, no huge platters of unlimited food on the table.
-Steve McDonagh, Owner/Operator of Hearty

My advice about getting families on track is that the first thing they need to do is keep good food in the house. At each meal if you don't offer something healthy then they will never eat it. We have a habit in our home that when my daughter is really hungry just before meal time I pass out carrot sticks, cut tomatoes and sometimes frozen peas. She likes them frozen! Anyway, keep the good food around, and easy for the kids to get to.
-Sarah Stegner, Co-chef/Owner of Prairie Fire and Prairie Grass Cafe