Getting together as a family to eat meals is hard enough, not to mention eating healthfully. Sometimes it can be hard to put together a healthy meal for your family, but following a few simple principles, such as seeking out fresh, unprocessed food and balancing ingredients across the food pyramid, can make family meals not only fun but healthy as well.
Breakfast
Breakfast is essential for starting your day off right, and it is especially important for children and adolescents, according to the Mayo Clinic. But fixing breakfast doesn't have to take a lot of time or be difficult. A simple bowl of whole-grain oatmeal, topped with fresh fruit like strawberries, blueberries or raspberries, is a healthy meal with complex carbohydrates and a full serving of fruit to start off your family's day. You can even serve it with a glass of low-fat or skim milk to get some protein in your diet right off the bat. Other healthy breakfast meal ideas include egg-white omelets with fresh vegetables in them, such as green peppers, onions and tomatoes, and even low-sugar cold cereal with an apple or orange on the side.
Lunch
Soup and sandwiches has long been a lunch classic, and this meal can be prepared in a healthful way with minimal effort. Corn chowder, made with 1 percent milk rather than heavy cream and loaded with vegetables without the fat and saturated fat of many canned soups, can be a delicious, belly-warming meal on a cold winter afternoon. Serve it with a sandwich made out of whole-grain bread, a lean cut of meat, such as turkey breast, and loaded with fresh vegetable toppings like lettuce, tomato, onion and sprouts and you've got a healthy, filling, mid-day meal. Other lunch options include grilled cheese sandwiches made with whole-grain bread and skim milk cheese or a salad chock-full of delicious veggies, with a chopped avocado for plenty of nutritious monounsaturated fat.
Dinner
After a long day of school, work or running errands, your family wants to sit down to a hot, delicious meal, but that doesn't mean it has to be unhealthy to be filling. During the summer, grilling lean cuts of meat like chicken breasts, pork loin cuts and even fish is a good way to get protein in your diet. Serve it with a pile of brown rice and steamed broccoli, carrots or peas and you have a well-balanced meal everyone will love. You can also make heart-healthy lasagna by using low-fat cottage cheese, skim-milk mozzarella, whole-grain noodles and cooked and drained low-fat ground beef. Serve with a salad topped with vinaigrette dressing.
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