Today I spoke with Tanya Steel, co-author of Real Food for Healthy Kids. Tanya is editor in chief of the award-winning food website Epicurious.com. Winner of a prestigious James Beard Foundation Journalism Award, she is a regular guest on Today, has written extensively for the New York Times, and been an editor at Bon Appetit and Food & Wine magazines. She lives in New York with her husband and twin sons. Check out the Real Food for Healthy Kids site for lots of great recipes and info.

Tanya’s trick-free rules for feeding children:
·     Don’t feed kids something you wouldn’t eat yourself.
·    At lunch and dinner, start everyone off with a little appetizer of raw veggies. At breakfast, start them off with fresh fruit.
·    Don’t use food as a punishment or a bribe.
·     Encourage slow eating. Eating slowly is best for both digestion and preventing overeating. It takes 20 minutes for your brain to tell your stomach that it’s full.
·    Don’t insist that kids “clean their plates.” Kids should eat until they feel full and not a bite more.
·    Implement a “No-Thank-You Bite” rule — if they don’t like how a new food looks, be sure they take at least one bite, but don’t force them to eat all of it.