Happy New Year 2023!
Now is the time to turn a new page and start making plans for a better year ahead! This should include organisation of home, family routines, exercise routines, and most importantly eating well balanced nutritious meals.
Start with writing in a new Diary or Journal. Make a list of meals you can plan for the week ahead or even a month. This includes:

- Breakfast
- Snack
- Lunch
- Tea
- Dinner
Ensure the 5 important food groups are included regularly throughout the week.
- Protein – meat, chicken, fish
- Dairy
- Carbohydrates – cereals
- Vegetables 5 serves each
- Fruit 3 serves each
As well keep in mind other health requirements for other members of your family or household, or individual tastes. Some people may have food allergies. Most children (and adults too!) don’t like to see vegetables on their plate! Forcing people to eat something they don’t like and creating a hostile atmosphere at the table when this occurs, can lead to other dietary problems later on in life. I agree it is very stressful for the person who does all the cooking and cleaning at home to cope with this situation, but if you focus on simple meals which you have tried out before or passed down through your family, life will be a lot more manageable!
Tip 1: When all else fails, grate the raw vegetables into foods like soups, casseroles, sauces, so that your family get their daily dietary requirements. For example grated carrots, zucchini, finely chopped spinach, cabbage, are very nutritious and hardly noticed in gravies and sauces. Our ancestors had to be very economical in cooking meals for their families, due to wars, and shortages of food at various times of history. Adding grated vegetables to sauces and gravies increased the taste of food and added bulk to the food for all the family.
Tip 2: Decorate the food platters with a attractive theme and encourage children in decorating meals and dining table as well. Eating those colorful veggies may not work first time, but in time it will change.
Tip 3: During working week, focus on planning simple meals, rather than following recipe books, videos on the internet, because reading up the recipe takes time and preparation which may double the time on cooking the meal.
Till my next post, enjoy your cooking!
Cheers – Mary
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