Appetite for Life Book Review

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I have been trying and trying to get my kids to eat healthier lately but reversing years of bad habits is not as easy as it sounds. They have been doing pretty good about eating fresh fruits and my son is now addicted to spinach, but there is always room for improvement. So, I was excited to learn about the book Appetite for Life by Stacey Antine and was hopeful that I could learn some more tricks to help make our lifestyle a healthier one.

Appetite for Life: The Thumbs-Up, No Yucks Guide to Getting Your Kid to Be a Great Eater -Including Over 100 Kid-Approved Recipes offers the following:

• Takes the guesswork out of feeding kids healthy meals from breakfast to bedtime with an effective approach that includes making kids the family taste testers
• Helps parents to be the facilitators of health, not the no-fun rule enforcers
• Provides more than 100 recipes for every day and celebrations
• Engages children in the kitchen and the garden, and teaches them the differences between natural and artificial foods
• Provides fun and educational games that parents and children can play together
• Includes a "Week-at-a-Glance Recipe" section to help parents avoid making a run for fast food during dinnertime

Review: I really love this book. It covers everything you could possibly need to convert to or maintain a healthy lifestyle with your children.  The author does a great job of explaining why certain foods or ingredients are healthy, why others are not, and provides a wide variety of ways to incorporate healthy foods into your life.  I love that the recipes contained within the book are already kid-approved and the healthy ingredients are often incorporated into appealing foods like cupcakes.  It is recommended that you cook with your kids, something I have been doing with my children for years.

I have been struggling a bit with packing healthier lunches for my kids and I love the "Lunchbox Blueprint" that Antine describes. I was having trouble thinking outside of the box, but there are some really great ideas.  I also really appreciate the information on seasonal eating/shopping. As the fresh berry season comes to an end, I am having trouble finding alternatives so I found this information quite helpful. There is so much information in this book that I have been leafing through it slowly and applying 1-2 small changes at a time with great success. My kids are now eating regular yogurt with fresh fruit instead of tubed yogurt, are enjoying celery and dip instead of potato chips, and packing milk or water in their lunches instead of drink pouches. My son and I even went to the Whole Foods Co-op today to look around, buy some flax seed, and learn about organic foods.  I am looking forward to continuing to implement changes and testing out some recipes. This is definitely a must-have reference book for my library!

Buy it here: Appetite for Life retails for $17.99 (soft cover) and can be found at bookstores or at a discounted price from Amazon. It is also available in a Kindle edition and hard cover.

*I was provided with the above mentioned product for the purpose of facilitating this review. All opinions expressed are my own.