\nResearch shows that the time to drive to a restaurant, order, and eat often takes longer than cooking at home.\u00a0 There are many ways you can save time as you cook: Plan meals for the week so you don’t have to spend time figuring out what to cook each night. \u00a0Clean as you go. \u00a0Prepare enough for “planned-overs” (i.e. leftovers).\u00a0 Cook extra meat to use in another dish the next night. \u00a0Make one-pot meals, such as Skillet Lasagna<\/a>, that include a grain, vegetable, and protein.<\/p>\n
“The food I make doesn’t taste as good.” “I never have the ingredients I need to make a meal.” “I don’t know how to cook.” “We go out because everybody in my family wants something different.” Another friend who’s a dietitian had this rule at her house:\u00a0 If you absolutely don’t like what is served you can have a bowl of cereal with skim milk.\u00a0 The cereal options in her house were all low-sugar, whole grain options.\u00a0 Most of the time, her kids would eat the meal served.\u00a0 If they didn’t, she didn’t have to do any extra work and her kids were still having a healthy “meal”.<\/p>\n We want you to share your suggestions too!\u00a0\u00a0Post a comment below.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2007 Expert Committee Recommendations on Childhood & Adolescent Overweight & Obesity included some great information to help families achieve and\/or maintain a healthy weight.\u00a0 The committee identified three behaviors with strong evidence showing the behavior caused excessive calorie intake.\u00a0 Each behavior is modifiable so making these three changes can have a significant impact on helping all family members maintain Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,780],"tags":[59,60,51,52,61],"class_list":["post-4623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e","category-nutrition-2","tag-cooking","tag-family-meals","tag-kids","tag-obesity","tag-overweight","cat-42-id","cat-780-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/cookbook1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4623"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4623"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9022,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4623\/revisions\/9022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nStart a recipe file.\u00a0 Try different recipes and save your family’s favorites.\u00a0 You can ask friends and family for their favorite recipes.\u00a0 Web sites like http:\/\/www.kraftfoods.com\/<\/a> and http:\/\/www.allrecipes.com\/<\/a> let people rate the recipes so you can choose one that a lot of people have really enjoyed.\u00a0 Not all recipes will be a hit, but you’ll end up with a nice file of recipes you know you’re family will enjoy.<\/p>\n
\nTake time to meal plan once a week.\u00a0 It will save you so much time (and money!!) in the long run.\u00a0 Check out my blog article from this past September on Meal Planning<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nAs nutrition educators, we are seeing more and more adults with minimal cooking skills.\u00a0 It’s not their fault; they simply never had the opportunity to learn how to cook because they grew up in families that ate out or ate convenience foods most of the time.\u00a0 If you want to improve your cooking skills, check out classes available at your local Extension Office or Community College.\u00a0 Consider buying a cookbook or checking one out from the library. \u00a0Choose a basic cookbook that teaches you how to cook.\u00a0 One of my favorites is Mark Bittman’s cookbook entitled How to Cook Everything.<\/p>\n
\n![\"Cereal\"](\"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/cereal.jpg\")
No parent wants to become a short order cook.\u00a0 My friend has a family rule that they will go out to eat once a week.\u00a0 Her three kids know the rule so once they’ve gone out during the week, they don’t pester her to go out on the other nights.\u00a0 They know they get to choose what they want when they go out, and the other nights they eat what is served at home.<\/p>\n