It can definitely be hard at first. For my kids, they are younger (5 and 8) so they are welcome to pitch a fit about meals, but they can either choose to eat it, or wait until the next meal. I make sure they like at least one part of the meal, so they can just eat a lot of that if they choose, or choose to pick stuff out. I don't battle them, its very matter of fact: this is what is for dinner, either join us and be polite, or excuse yourself. My H backs me up with lots of "mommy worked hard to make this dinner, lets use our good manners and thank her even if it isn't our favorite". And they can go make themselves peanut butter bread (always whole wheat, lol!) if they want.

Luckily my H is on the same page as me, I think it is much harder to negotiate with spouses, because you are in fact negotiating, not dictating like with kids. With my H, even though we both like to eat clean, we just have some different dietary needs, so we do cook 2 things sometimes. Typically I do what a lot of others have suggested. I either make a big meal for me one day, and eat leftovers the next, and then on that day make a big thing for H, and he eats leftovers the next, etc. Or, I make meals that can have easy inexpensive variations. I make tacos, and people can either have tacos, taco salad, and they can put whatever toppings they want on. I make make stir fry, and people can pick out whatever parts they want, put on rice or not, etc.

We also make big batches of soups and stews, and freeze in freezer safe wide mouth pint canning jars. They are the perfect portion for one person. Either H or I can grab a kind we like and have it as a lunch or dinner, adding a piece of fruit to make a complete meal.

My family loves my meals. I make an organic chicken Alfredo and they just gobble it up. I also make organic cheesecake on rare occasions and they love that also. With all of my old recipes I just changed them into organic by using organic ingredients, so the adjustment for them was easy. My husband yesterday made cake (not organic) the kids and him loved it but I didn't eat any of it. We tend to use the slow cooker a lot. My family knows that if they don't eat what I cook then they can make their own meal.

Notreadytoquit wrote: »

I like that idea suzan06. The jars don't break?

Wide mouth pints and all jelly/jam jars are freezer safe. And since it is glass, you can just microwave in the jar (take the metal lid off first of course!) and eat right out of it. So easy for lunches.

The narrow mouth pints and quarts can be frozen with stuff like berries, green beans, etc- basically stuff with lots of air, but not with liquids.

you say you don't make the traditional meat,starch, veg meal anymore .... am I being dumb or is meat, potato and veg not the perfect 'clean' meal??

My kids grew up eating an almost clean diet, that's not to say they didn't have treats, sweets, fizzy drinks etc but they where a treat and not an every day occurrence.

Turning the family to a 'cleaner' way of life doesn't need to be difficult, most meals can be adapted. Tonight for example I did a spaghetti bolognaise ... the bolognaise portion is all cooked from scratch, veg, meat all clean. The kids/hubby had their portion with Pasta as usual, I had my portion with butternut squash spaghetti.

We all enjoyed the meal, I dare say the kids don't concider it 'mum's crazy health food' and I stuck to my diet. all in all it took 1 extra pan of washing up and a few extra mins to prep the butternut.

Same thing if the kids hubby want ... pie and chips or fishfingers ... most things can all go in the oven at the same temperature. it's not really a hardship to stick a salmon fillet in next to my husbands pie. Then I do oven chips for the family and slice up a sweetpotato for me shove them on the same tray.

The 'trick' is to cook the same things as you would usually, but slowly improve the quality and the family need not notice.

'Clean' doesn't mean freaky you may be over thinking it. if it's hard your doing it wrong.

My husband is an adventurous eater as well as more than happy to eat anything I put in front of him. He could lose 20 pounds (30?), so he totally sees the benefits of eating the clean, vegetarian meals I make. The few foods he requests are healthy (recently it was mushroom brown rice soup with broccolini). But he will order burgers out at restaurants. One or two of his "junky" meals a week fine with me. I'm so lucky he's such an agreeable mate!