If you’re a parent or caregiver, you likely know firsthand how busy mealtimes can be. Whether your kids are toddlers or teenagers (or anywhere in between), it can be challenging to not only meet your family’s food preferences, but also find the time to shop, cook, and serve it all at a time that works for everyone’s schedules. Not to mention doing so in a way that also meets your health goals and priorities.
Thankfully, this is exactly where Metabolic Meals can help. After making a few weekly decisions on what to order, you can relax knowing that nutritious and delicious meals are on their way and can help take care of mealtime whenever your family needs it most.
5 Ways that Metabolic Meals can Help you Feed and Nourish your Family
One of the many goals of Metabolic Meals is to simplify your life, without sacrificing your health. This applies to not only you, but your entire family. According to the CDC, nearly 20% of American children are obese, and the numbers are continually rising. Since research reports that children model their eating habits after their parents, eating well for you may translate to eating well for everyone. This in turn sets your whole family up for success, while helping promote good health along the way.
Here are 5 ways that using Metabolic Meals can support your family’s busy life while still promoting a healthy diet:
1. Solves the mealtime decision fatigue.
Whether you’re coming home late from sports practice, trying to scarf down an actual lunch for yourself after getting your kids fed, or realize you don’t have enough groceries on hand to make a meal for everyone, you won’t have to worry about figuring out what to eat. When you order Metabolic Meals, you can rest easy knowing you’ve got complete and balanced meals in your fridge that are good for any time of day. Since no cooking or other preparation is required, your meals can be ready in minutes.
2. Effortlessly adds variety to the whole family’s diet.
Each person can choose what they want to eat during the week, and since the menu changes weekly, it is very possible to go the entire month without eating the same thing twice. This means no more being stuck in the rut of eating the same foods over and over again. It also provides an opportunity to explore new cuisines from different cultures. Because different foods provide different nutrients, eating a wider variety often equals better nutrient intake, thus promoting better overall health.
3. Encourages new food exploration, which may help with picky eating.
Along with variety comes a variety of new flavors, colors and textures for children to explore. While there are no specific “kids meals”, each meal provides an opportunity for your child or adolescent to taste and explore something new, without you having to cater to their possibly limited preferences. This can lead to increased food acceptance and possibly less picky eating, which is significant since studies have found that children who were picky eaters tend to grow into adults who have lower intakes of healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and higher intakes of less healthy things like highly processed food and sweetened beverages. So, any action taken to help kids accept new foods can have a positive ripple effect on the rest of their life.
4. Provides a convenient and nutrient-dense alternative to fast food.
Unfortunately, very few items on fast food kids menus are in line with the national dietary guidelines. In addition, research has proven that frequently eating fast food contributes to serious health conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer. So reducing how often you participate in eating fast food is always a good decision for your family’s health.
Unlike fast food restaurants, all of the Metabolic Meals are cooked fresh and are never frozen. In addition, the ingredients are thoughtfully sourced to create nutrient-dense meals that are free of refined sugar, artificial colors or flavors. This provides premium food quality that is not found in a drive through. Also unlike fast food, each meal supplies balanced portions of all the major macronutrients, while being rich in a variety of vitamins and minerals as well.
So whether you have the meals delivered to your college student who doesn’t cook and lives away from home, or use them as a quick and easy meal on days or nights that you need it, you’ll be doing everyone’s health a favor (while still allowing each family member to have the fun of picking their own meal!).
5. Meets everyone’s dietary needs.
With things like allergies, dietary preferences, food sensitivities and more, it can be hard to meet your whole family’s dietary needs without making something different for each person (which is certainly not practical). All of the Metabolic Meals are both gluten and soy-free and can meet many other dietary needs such as low-carb, low-sodium, dairy-free and more. This makes feeding your family simple, and may even encourage more meals eaten at the table together.
The Takeaway
Eating for convenience can also include eating for good health. As a busy family with a variety of different needs and health goals, you can rest easy knowing that it is in fact possible to have the best of both worlds.
By: Joanna Foley, RD
Joanna Foley, RD, is a freelance health writer and author of two cookbooks based in San Diego, California. Learn more about her writing services and the companies she works with atjoannafoleynutrition.com/press.
