Create a Good Food Mood to Enjoy Meals Together!

Written by Holly Stuhr, Maine SNAP-Ed Nutrition Educator, Healthy Oxford Hills

Want to learn how to make family mealtimes more enjoyable? Read on for tips to help set a Good Food Mood!

1. Get your little chef helping in the kitchen! Cooking together can take the mystery out of what they are eating. If kids help to make the meal, they will get to know the ingredients. This can take away the fear of the unknown. Plus, kids often love helping in the kitchen and feel a real sense of pride trying the foods they help to make. Find a list of age appropriate tasks for kids in the kitchen here!

2. Eat together! Children learn from what they see you do. So, being a really good food mood model can help a lot. Being positive and trying new foods together can go a long way.

#3. You can offer just one new ingredient at a time and serve it with something you know your child likes to eat.

4. Serve foods in new ways! For example, you can serve food cooked in different ways, separately, and/or mixed into a dish. Variety is the spice of life! Visit the Maine SNAP-Ed website recipe page for kid friendly recipes.

5. Teach your child how they can talk politely about food. Please and thanks you, “no thank yous,” and more can help kids have a healthy relationship with food and others. You can teach your child the phrase “don’t yuk my yum,” which means to not talk negatively about a food. It might be someone else’s favorite. You wouldn’t want them to feel badly about it!

6. Be patient. Our taste buds are constantly changing and not all tomatoes taste the same. So you can keep mixing it up!