You're confusing me

[Mary Raven]

Said my son today!

He's 9. No allergies. A healthy, lean boy!

I always thought that our family ate healthy:

nothing deep fried

No fast food

No processed foods

Always a cooked dinner at home

Never leave home without a brekkie

He had fries from McDonnalds once in his life. (we don't eat at MD but I let him try when he was 6 and he didn't like it *yay*)

Loves tofu, soy sauce, hummus, falafel, soy burgers, corn, risotto along with meat, eggs and fish which made his mom proud.

And then came May 2013 and his mom's eating habbits changed. She wants him on board with Paleo.

So how do we explain our kids that tofu is bad, that they won't get falafel at our fav place. That his wish to have a roasted corn on the cob makes his mom want to cry....

No wonder he is confused.

Is there any family here that wasn't overweight, didn't have health issues, thought they were eating healthy and then found Paleo?

[Colleen Roy]

Maybe try explaining it as simply as "the foods you enjoy and that we used to eat often are not BAD, but there are even better, healthier foods out there that I would like us to eat more often-we are going to eat these foods and avoid other foods for 30 days and see how we feel."

It doesn't need to be complicated. KISS, right? I bet he won't even notice in a few weeks!

[Christina Cowell]

I won't claim to have had my kids eating as "healthy" as you did, but I'm definitely having the same reaction from my kids.  They are all healthy (in their minds... from my perspective though, one has ADHD/ODD and another has rashes and black circles under his eyes and tummyaches so I'm guessing some kind of food allergy) and since they don't feel sick they don't understand why they have to change their food.  Mine are older (7, 9, 11 & 12) so they want explanation about WHY they have to change.  I'm not very good at the explanation part.  =0( Doesn't help that Grandma, who they eat with twice a week, isn't on board and tells them that they need milk and bread, etc.  My kids are not happy with this change and one of them even threw up the other day in protest. Grrrrr.

[Ravin]

Honestly, when I suggest DD get on board with me and explain how it could help her, she flat out refuses. But she's still stuck with what's served for dinner, and there are healthier choices available more than before. The other adults in the house eat SAD, so I can't keep stuff out entirely.

With kids set in their ways, baby steps make more sense to me than expecting them to change overnight. I'm also wary of creating control issues over food. Food is a deep aspect of culture, and a rapid change can be as confusing to a kid as a sudden religious conversion.