Simple tips to get more veggies on your (and your kids) plates

Do ever look at your plates, especially your kids, and wish there were more veggies on there? Have you thought about or even tried going vegetarian, or eliminating certain groups from your diet, but maybe felt overwhelmed or stuck in old habits? 

Yep, we've all been there. It's not easy as an adult to make changes to our diets, even when we know it's probably good for us. Add kids to the equation and the wall seems insurmountable at times! If you're like me, you might have grown up on a meat and potatoes kind of diet. In Wisconsin this was more like the "sausage and cheese" diet. Yummy for sure, but definitely not veggie friendly. We all tend to get stuck in habits or patterns of eating, making the same recipes, reaching for the same snacks, without really paying attention to how our bodies feel after we eat. Unless you've got a food allergy that creates a strong reaction to certain foods, you might not notice that you're more sluggish after eating certain foods, or have big swings in your mood throughout the day depending on what you're eating. 

Before we moved to Colorado I met an amazing group of mamas through a book club. One of those women is now the Head Chef at the Rivertown Inn in Stillwater, Minnesota, and the author of the blog The Alternative Dish. Maggie Wescott has a passion for creating amazing and healthy food, and has some great tips for us mamas wanting to be more plant-forward in our kitchens. Tune in to our interview below to learn: 
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• What plant-forward means & looks like in our homes
• Tips for encouraging your kids to eat more veggies and try new foods
• Tricks for substituting healthy options into yummy recipes

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After this interview I changed how we eat dinner. Where I used to plate everyone's dinner. Now I've started offering a family-style dinner, with the caveat that the girls need to try at least one bite of the new thing we were trying. Yes, I usually try to have something on the table that I know they like. But even then, they LOVE having some sort of choice (even though it's really guided by me) and were more than happy to try one bite. More often than not that has led to a few more bites, and at times even an,  "You know what mom? This is really good!". 

Thank you so much Maggie for your tips, recipes, and insights! You can find links below to the recipes Maggie mentioned, and do check out our her blog The Alternative Dish.  

Want to dive a little deeper? Maybe make a bigger shift in your diet or eating habits?

Each year I host two 7-day, guided dietary shifts, one in Spring and one in Fall. The program is called Let's Get Glowing, and that's truly the aim. To give you the space to reboot your diet for seven days, temporarily eliminate some of the most common culprits of inflammation, mood changes, and disease, and really allow yourself the opportunity to tune in to what makes you feel good more of the time, to help you truly glow from the inside out. 

Want to learn more about it? Get all the details direct to your inbox!

And let me know, what is one thing you are going to try to be more plant-forward in your kitchen? 


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Try out some of Maggie's recipes!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip - perfect with sliced apples, pears, or pretzels
Oven-Baked Falafel 
Gluten-free Wild Rice Stuffing