Since I’m no longer a stay-at-home mom who can have the smell of fresh-baked cookies wafting through the house when the kids come through the door from school, I now have to plan ahead every morsel of food that they eat. Making my teenaged girls healthy snacks, in particular, takes some creativity. Besides, they’re old enough to manage their own.

But if I left my youngest in charge of her diet, she’d be in the hospital from malnutrition.

Baby girl hates to eat just about anything healthy. Her preference is to eat fried chicken and pasta every day. Snacks are the worst to plan for her because she hates fruit and is some-timey about salads. Don’t even talk about getting her to eat vegetables. The best way to get her to eat anything green is to hide it in pasta. She does like applesauce, though. But I’m always hesitant to buy it packaged because so much pre-packaged food includes sugar and preservatives.

Determined to help her expand her mind about food, I decided to introduce her to my applesauce, which is much different than store brands.

I also tricked her and added pears in an effort to get her to eat other fruits. Applesauce is simple to make, and she loves it next to cinnamon toast, which she can make herself.

Not Your Grandmother’s Applesauce (Serves

 Ingredients:

12 mixed apples:

3 Gala

3 Granny Smith

2 Red Delicious

4 Macintosh

5 Pears (mixed)

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 tablespoon apple cider

Directions:

Skin and core apples and pears. Cut into halves and poach covered until soft. Blend with seasonings and cider. Serve warm with buttered toast.

Garnish with: black walnuts, shredded coconut, and/or currants

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I come from a background where everything was fried in lard or pork fat. Years ago, I eliminated all of that from my diet. I eat no pork. I rarely eat beef and mostly eat turkey. I know that I should increase my intake of fish.

I drink a lot of water and recently learned from a friend a cool way to add pep to it. I served the drink to another friend who gave it the name ”fruit water.”

This is how it evolved:

I was having lunch at a friend’s house and she served water with strawberries floating in it. It was a bit tart for me and I asked her, “Where’s the sugar?” It was a joke because I no longer add white or processed sugar to anything. I sweeten with honey or raw sugar – and I even do that sparingly.

She said that this was a drink that she served to her son and daughter when they were growing up, and they loved it. Surprisingly, I adapted pretty quickly to her “strawberry” water.

About a month later, I was going on a long drive with a friend to pick up her daughter from college, and I wanted a refreshing drink to take along. I found a recipe in Ebony magazine for red Sangria, and kept all the ingredients except the vodka and wine.

It called for a lemon, orange and lime cut in wedges; 1 cup of cherries, blackberries and chopped pineapples and 3 cups of ginger ale.

It was delicious.

But since I don’t imbibe soft drinks that often, I knew that I had to find a healthy substitute. I love bottled water, so I now add fruit to my water (I’m sure you can also use tap water). This isn’t sweetened water (I never add sugar); in fact, it can be a bit tart. For me, it was an acquired taste, but one that I’ve learned to enjoy.

Sometimes, I add different fruits, but strawberries are always the base. As the seasons change, I’ll try other fruits.

This fruit water is my new choice of drink with dinner. I also have added peaches (and left out the blackberries) because they are so plentiful this time of year. I have found that pineapples sweetened the water a bit. When the color has drained from the strawberries, I dump the fruits and start anew.

I’ve served this water to friends, and they, too, find it very refreshing.

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Whenever we fix our minds to go on a diet, we are setting ourselves up to fail. Being overweight (unless there’s some type of thyroid challenge) happens when we allow our eating habits to get out of control, and as we get older we have to pay closer attention to what goes into our mouths.

Losing and keeping unwanted pounds off for good means changing our mindsets, and getting a firm grip on our eating and exercise habits. (Oatmeal photo by cuppycake)

A good place to start reforming our bad habits is to eat a good hearty breakfast every morning.

Remember when we were children and the elders made us eat a breakfast that “sticks to our ribs”?  It had to be something hearty like meat, potatoes, eggs or porridge (as they called it), and there was no such thing as skipping breakfast.

And our grandmothers were right when they maed us eat foods like oatmeal, which is filling and full of nutrition, first thing in the morning. And I’m not talking about instant oatmeal from the microwave, either. I mean good old fashioned rolled oats that are cooked on top of the stove.

In our house growing up, we never ate sugary cereal for breakfast. Those very few times (and I do mean few) that our mother allowed us to have cereals like Sugar Pops or Frosted Flakes, she also insisted that we also eat real food.

Back then, mostly women made sure that we ate a good breakfast, but with so many of us working in full-time professions these days, lots of kids are lucky if they get a frozen waffle or an Egg McMuffin before they leave the house. Sadly, many eat nothing at all. For the most part, I’ve carried my mother’s breakfast habits into my own home and send my own children off to school every day with a hot meal. They like eggs, turkey bacon and French toast, but I prefer more simple foods like oatmeal.

I particularly love oatmeal that’s topped with honey and fresh fruit, and I’ll even order it if I’m eating out at a  restaurant. (Oatmeal photo by Robert)

Hot breakfast, not cold cereal, was Mom’s mainstay throughout my childhood, and even today, when we get together for coffee she is concerned if I don’t eat something for breakfast - even if it’s only a piece of whole-grain toast. Every morning, she sent us out with a full-course meal under our belts: eggs, bacon, grits, popovers, creamed chip beef, French toast. Made-from-scratch waffles on Sundays were her regular routine. 

And she’s right, we do feel much better when we eat a hearty meal for breakfast, because it makes us think and perform better in everything we do.

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