Getting Family To Eat Whole Wheat

Tell him to make his own meals then, since that is what you will be cooking with

Tell him to make his own meals then, since that is what you will be cooking with

This ^^^ If your cooking then he eats what you make or goes to bed hungry... just like my 3 year old LOL

Around here, she who does the cooking gets to decide what to cook! If the SO doesn't like brown rice or whole wheat pasta or other healthier alternatives then I'd hand him the apron and spoon and tell him to go for it! Just make sure you eat whatever he cooks I promise it won't take long until he's happily gone back to letting you plan and execute meals!

This works for me, anyway. The men in the house cooked hotdogs and mac & cheese tonight. I ate it without complaint (since i knew dinner would be something unreasonable, I planned ahead and limited calories earlier in the day) but I also won't tolerate complaints about the meals I prepare. They can either eat them, or go hungry or fix dinners for themselves!

Mix the whole wheat with regular pasta, gradually increasing the whole wheat ratio. Also, use a red sauce with the whole wheat. Sometimes, if they can't see that it looks different, they don't notice the taste difference. At least, that works with my brother-in-law.

I am a severely gluten intolerant. My mom broke down and bought some GF noodles for a family get together so I wouldn't have to bring my own food. She told me first thing, "I am never going back to regular pasta again. These noodles taste so much better and are lower in calories." They are made with brown rice. Super yummy.

Blind fold him, or tell him he doesn't get to watch TV if he doesn't finish his whole grain's.

I found that if I treat Mr Shiny and the teenagers like very small children (ok, I'll say it - like cranky babies) and hide the nutrition I can get in a lot of healthy stuff. Once they have had something a few times, I'll let them know and I get alot of "wow I never thought I would like (whatever)".

For whole grains - if they can't SEE that it looks different, they haven't been able to taste a difference. I started by mixing regular penne or rigatoni with whole grain, gradually increasing the percentage of whole grain, and didn't let them see the whole grain packaging. I also add stuff to sauces - shredded carrots, zuchini, really anything will work in a nice red pasta sauce. My kids now like brown rice and think white rice is "too soft and bland", but it's still a work in progress with Mr Shiny. He'll eat brown rice in stir fries, etc but his preference is still white rice, but he knows that if we're having rice I make brown rice and if he wants white rice he'll have to make it himself.

I mix grains - like oatmeal, brown rice, bulgur - into anything using ground turkey, chicken, or beef. I try to avoid any non- organic meat, so it also helps keep the cost down by streching the number of servings.

White rice is so bland.. I can't imagine anyone being passionate enough about their white rice that they would insist on it for long.

My husband eats what I cook, but I'd never force him to eat something he really didn't like. Hes an adult, he can make his own choices. If I liked whole wheat bread, and he liked white, I would buy both. Not a huge deal honestly. My husband has to make his own health choices, I can't force him to do anything he doesn't want to do.

Yeah, I have one of those. It's a pleasant little power fantasy to think you can just say "eat it or go hungry" or "eat it, or do your own cooking" -- unfortunately, yeah, happy little fantasy world doesn't work in the real world. Not unless I wanted to divorce over white vs. wheat bread. I liked the way the other poster put it: this is not a hill I want to die on.

So. I will try new things, and sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. The white bread with whole grains? No-go. Whole grain pasta? Even *I* think that stuff is gross. I have had success using whole wheat flour for breading, for example, on pork chops or chicken tenders -- nobody notices or cares -- and I put wheat germ in their hamburgers and salmon patties.

I've had the best success with things they don't see. I switched to healthier oil for cooking; nobody noticed or cared. I switched to organic spaghetti sauce; they liked it better. I switched to organic ketchup; they insisted that the only real ketchup is Heinz. Well, fortunately, Heinz makes a variety without HFCS, so we compromised. I switched to wild-caught salmon, organic eggs, organic beef and chicken; nobody noticed.

So, not really winning on the whole grains, but I've got plenty of other areas to focus on for now. I've decided whole grains can wait until I've got everything else sorted out. To paraphrase the Proverb: Better to eat white bread in a quiet house than whole wheat bread with continual fighting.

omg are we married to the same guy? my husband acts like a child when it comes to trying new things. i have been making two different dinners (white rice and brown rice, white past and whole wheat pasta, etc) but it gets tedious and time consuming! when i ask him to try new things, he complains that he doesnt want to and then if he does, he gets that scrunched up "this is disgusting" look on his face before the food has even TOUCHED his tongue. it's so frustrating! i just wish he would TRY things with an OPEN MIND before he decides he doesnt like them. obviously then i wouldnt be so pissed because not everyone likes everything! i dont know how to get around this closed mind thing.

I cook what I cook. If anyone doesn't like it then they are welcome to take over cooking duties!

How did I get them to eat whole grains? By serving it up. By simply not buying the crap anymore.

This ^. It only took me chucking my husband's dinner in the sink once with a "fine, then buy, plan and cook your own damn food, I'm just trying to keep you healthy" for him to get the message. He's an adult, he can put his big boy panties on and suck it up.
As for the kids, they've never had the option, it's always been brown everything since they were little.
I admit to being smug when one of my kids asks "where's the brown bread?" when we're out at a bbq or whatever. Yes I brainwash my children with nutritional info, No I don't care!

"Every night for dinner I give my family two options: "Take it, or leave it." "

I'm trying to get healthy but my mom won't buy most of the stuff I suggest (I'm 16, can't drive, jobless.) It's pretty aggravating lol. But she does buy some stuff which helps, but I can't wait to become independent and have my own money to buy what I want and stay healthy. Will be so much more helpful.

I asked the same whole wheat question and got nearly the same answer aswell a couple days ago

When I first started eating healthy, I fixed whole wheat for me and white pasta for my boyfriend (he's the same way - says it taste like cardboard). Ironically, I decided to try spiral noodles made of brown rice pasta (in the glueten-free section), and my boyfriend tried one of mine (in marinara sauce), and he said it tasted just like regular pasta. I haven't made pasta since then, but I am going to try to use brown rice pasta in all of the pasta dishes I make now.

When I started doing this the 2nd time around, I just made white pastas. He won't eat brown rice either, so I do the boil-in-a-bag rice and put 1 white rice and 1 brown rice in the boiling water.