When Lucy was about 20 months old, if you wandered into our home at dinner time, what you would undoubtedly witness would be a screaming little girl while 2 exhausted parents pretended to have an engaging conversation when in fact, we were gritting our teeth and wanting to scream louder than the precious little hooligan sitting between us. What we were doing at the time was food training.

Rewind a few months before that and as new parents, who were just coming out of the shock of the newborn stage, we hadn’t been paying close attention to Lucy’s eating habits until it was too late. In our haze of just trying to survive, we hadn’t diversified her food or encouraged good meal time habits and it was driving me batty. Enter the book Bringing up Bebe. I won’t go into the whole thing except to say that the French parents’ take on food really spoke to me. It was then and there that Andrew and I decided to do the hard work and change how we approached food as a family.

So we started the training and it was loud and hard and frustrating but as the weeks wore on, we started to see little glimmers of hope. She started tasting foods she had refused to taste before, dinners went from lasting 5 minutes to 10 minutes and then 15 minutes, and Andrew and I began to have good conversations with her and each other. We began to enjoy dinner again! As time has gone on, I’ve also noticed that a lot of what we implemented has really helped with keeping down the food waste that children typically contribute to. Here are some tips that might help you as well if you find that you are scraping too much food into the trash after a meal.

Big, hearty breakfasts: a typical breakfast for my girls looks like one of each of these… 1) toast or waffle, 2) oatmeal or cereal, 3) yogurt or cottage cheese, and 4) apple sauce or banana. Yes, that seems like a lot but they haven’t eaten in 12 hours and it has to fill them because they won’t eat again until lunch which brings me to my next tip…

Consider quitting snacks: I don’t give snacks to the girls during the day to ensure that they are hungry at mealtimes. The exception to this is 3:30-4:00 gouter (pronounced ‘goo-tay) which is the French word for the post school snack to tide them over to dinner which allows me to cook in some semblance of peace without having to hear, “I’m hungry.” If the girls ask for food during times that aren’t set aside to eat, I tell them it’s okay to feel hungry for a little bit, that it will help them enjoy the next meal more, and that the next meal will be in x amount of time.

During meal times, talk to your kids about where their food comes from: this includes geographically (state? country? continent?) as well as land type (ocean? Farms? Forests? Gardens?) and which animals died so that you could eat their meat (chickens? Deer? Cows? Pigs? Fish?) For younger kids you can even have picture cards and maps and make it into a game.

At dinner, only feed them what you’re eating: this is the best way for them to start loving good, healthy food. And making 2 meals is just more work than it needs to be. And if they refuse to eat it? Well, eat your dessert in front of them. That always kickstarts Lucy and if that still doesn’t work, they will be eating again in 12 hours at breakfast and, unless they have a medical condition which requires them to eat at certain times, they will survive!

Encourage tastes: as we were training, all we would require of Lucy in order to get her beloved berries as an after dinner treat was to simply taste everything. She didn’t have to eat a whole broccoli or tomato. And if she didn’t taste all the foods, no big deal! I mean, she wouldn’t get her berry treat but what did we care? She was the one who cared. Next time, she would try it because she hated not getting her berries as a treat. Andrew and I began saying, “We. Don’t. Care. If. You. Taste. It. Or. Not!… you just won’t get any berries if you don’t.” And it was so freeing!! We really didn’t care because we knew she would eventually start tasting everything to get those berries and on the way, she would start liking good food. It really took all the pressure off us.

Be realistic when putting food on their plate: don’t put how much you want them to eat but how much they will realistically eat. Let them ask for more of something instead of giving them too much from the start. This also keeps them from getting overwhelmed by how much food is on their plate. If you know they don’t like the vegetables you made or if it’s their first time trying it, put one single piece on their plate, not a spoonful. I made broccoli tonight and put just one piece on Lucy’s plate. Guess what she asked for more of. The pasta? Nope, the broccoli!

Let them see you eating good food: though I am very strict about “they eat what we eat” at dinner, I don’t adhere to it at breakfast and lunch. Most days, after I feed them, I will make my own breakfast and lunch and without fail they will come begging me for some of mine. This gets them eating avocados, tuna on arugula salad, whole grains, etc. which they probably would not have eaten if I had put it on their plates. But when they see me eating it and enjoying it, they want it and love it.

These are all practices we adhere to at our house and they have not only cut down on food waste but have encouraged good food and meal time habits. Like I said, we had to train Lucy for this but we learned from our mistake and started Nori off this way, right off the bat and she is a champion eater. Do they both eat and love everything I make? Nope, but that’s okay. They are being exposed to a variety of good food and are being set up to develop a love and appreciation of food and where it comes from in order that they won’t waste it.