Get Your Family Eating Right: A 30-day Plan for Teaching Your Kids Healthy Eating Habits for Life

by Lynn Fredericks, Mercedes Sanchez

Learn to Eat Healthy for Life—in Just 30 Days!  If you answered yes to any of these questions then Get Your Family Eating Right! can help you reclaim family mealtime. Studies are clear. Poor nutrition sets your children up for conditions like obesity, diabetes, and other illnesses as well as poor performance in school and activities. Families that consistently share nourishing meals together are healthier and happier. You can cook a healthy dinner but how do you ensure that healthy eating becomes a regular practice for you and your family and not something that ends when you get up from the table? Based on the award-winning program used in New York City public schools, 30 Days to Get Your Family Eating Right gives day-by-day nutritional advice, recipes, and meal concepts that are adaptable for everyone in the family--from young children to adults. Broken down into strategies such as “Prioritize Whole Food Snacks,” and “Eat All Your Colors,” and “Plan Meals Around Seasonal Foods” you and your children get healthy eating lessons that can be used to make smarter food choices at home, work, and school—today and for life. Eating better is doable and it isn’t complicated, expensive, or time-consuming. Family nutrition pioneers Lynn Fredericks and Mercedes Sanchez give delicious recipes such as Quinoa Breakfast Cereal, Scandinavian Barley Salad with Apples and White Bean and Chorizo Spanish Stew that let you put the strategies into practice tonight, get the kids cooking with you, and your family eating better effortlessly. 

Genres: Nonfiction, Cookbooks, Health

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2013

About the author

Lynn Fredericks is the founder and guiding force behind FamilyCook Productions. Author of Get Your Family Eating Right and the acclaimed, Cooking Time Is Family Time, she is an award-winning pioneer in the field of obesity prevention and family nutrition. After a successful career as a food and wine journalist and top restaurant publicist in the early 90s, Ms. Fredericks found her calling in 1995 when she brought her own lessons about cooking with children as a single parent, into culinary and public elementary schools of NYC. Since 1995, these educational efforts under FamilyCook have reached over 150,000 families. Ms. Fredericks's work in New York City public schools was recognized in 2002 with a Leadership Award, from the New York City Council of Administrators. In 2001, she was presented with a PRIDE award for her contribution in family nutrition to the NYC public school community. In 2006, Gourmet Magazine saluted FamilyCook’s efforts to bring cooking skills to inner city families. Such messages as family togetherness and moderation are the fulcrum of the FamilyCook educational approach, where families practice multicultural meal concepts that make dinnertime an adventure! Ms. Fredericks’ understanding of family dynamics and its relationship to food and health is a binding element of such FamilyCook curricula as Nibble with Willow (preschool); Look Who’s Cooking (K- 5); Teen Battle Chef (middle & high school). Collectively, these programs empower children -- and parents, to transform their relationship to food and enjoy more home cooked meals using fresh ingredients.

Through partnership with HealthCorps, founded by renowned cardiologist, author and television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz, her Teen Battle Chef program has grown to over 100 schools across the US, empowering youth to make measurable improvements in their eating habits and ‘stir up change’ in their communities by sharing their cooking skills and teaching others.

Together with her FamilyCook Productions’ team of dieticians and chefs, Ms. Fredericks has developed family-focused food & nutrition programs (curricula, learning tools & activities) for such state and local health departments, non-profits, and companies such as: Share Our Strength, HealthCorps; NY State Department of Health; CT State Department of Public Health, Public Health Solutions, YMCA’s the USA; Preferred Care (HMO); NYC Workforce Development Corporation; Montefiore School Health Program; The After School Corporation; FDNY, Wegmans Food Markets, Disney's Family.com, C-CAP (Careers Through Culinary Arts Program), StarChefs.com, AIWF Days of Taste. In addition, Ms. Fredericks has served as spokesperson for brands such as Barilla Pasta, Tupperware, Reynolds® Oven Bags, 3-M Post-It Flags, O-Cello Sponge Scrubbers, and The National Pasta Association among others.

A popular lecturer, television personality, and cooking demonstrator, Ms. Fredericks and FamilyCook programs have been featured on such national television shows as NBC’s Today, Cooking Live, and the Food Network’s Chopped, as well as numerous local radio and television programs around the U.S. 
Ms. Fredericks is also an avid outdoors enthusiast with a special love for cross-country skiing and fly-fishing. She resides in Manhattan with her two sons, Alex and Stephan.

Reviews

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I noticed my grocery list needed more variety, so I picked up this book. I love the suggestions for including kids in the cooking process. My children love helping me in the kitchen, but sometimes I get into a flow and forget to invite them. Some of the ingredients were obscure-- while I love trying new foods, I need suggestions for substitutions because I live in an area where it's difficult to find speciality items.

[Yycdaisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 4 stars. The recipes seemed to deserve a good rating anyway. Interesting to see how cooking with a child could be broken down into steps for both adult and child.

[Sheryl Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book through Goodreads:First reads and to be honest, I mostly looked into it for my sister. Her son is the pickiest eater ever and I thought this might give her some ideas to get him eating something other than kraft macaroni and cheese and frozen pizza. Some of these recipes look so delicious I might keep the book myself and just let her borrow it for awhile!! I can't wait to try some of the recipes, I would certainly recommend it to other readers.

[Breanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the ideas behind this book; getting your family shopping, cooking and eating healthier foods together. There were a lot of things that were not as applicable to my lifestyle (with young children) but some great tips and tricks that can help my meal planning/preparing go smoother (cup veggies for the week at once, eat seasonally and colorfully).

I also got some yummy recipes from the book that my family loves.

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unexpected surprise. My husband bought it to help us with our picky eaters and there is so much more to this book. It has definitely changed the way I look at cooking for my family and will definitely bring back the family meal together.