Have you ever bravely changed some of the things you feed your family and try to get them to eat the healthy stuff? Only to come up against major whinging and complaints?

I had that experience when I decided to swap white rice for brown rice, so we had a bit more fibre in meals with rice.

Oh my, that didn’t go down well at all!

And to be honest, I didn’t like it much myself either. I felt like joining my daughter in the complaints, but that would have ruined the attempt completely.

Nowadays, when we have a meal with rice, it is always brown rice … and no complaints.

So how did I get there?

Well, firstly you need to understand, and accept, that any major change to anything that your family is used to will make them sit up and take notice. And not like it!

You can either nag, cajole, blackmail etc to get them to eat the new food you’re trying to introduce. And say Hello to stressed, emotionally charged meal times.

Or you can use a more softly-softly approach.

What I did to get us used to eating brown rice instead of white rice, was initially only add a tiny amount of brown rice to the white rice. It was so little that we just didn’t really notice.

And over time I increased the amount of brown rice and reduced the white rice until we ate all brown rice.

You can use this strategy with a variety of foods!

What you’re aiming for is to bypass your family’s alarm system, so to speak.

So, what food do you want to get your family to eat more of? And how are you going to slowly add it to your meals?

I’d love to hear what your experience is. Just post a comment below or on the Eat Well Live Well Facebook page.