To get her kids excited about eating anything other than ice cream in the summer time, Samantha Yanke has actually to get creative.
She lets her three daughters, ages 4, 6 and 8, help along with the family garden. She makes up games about tomatoes, rhubarb and peppers, and she playfully asks for ideas when drafting the weekly grocery list.
But those efforts only go so far.
“My kids love trying brand-new food, but they’re still kids,” Yanke, who lives in Eldridge, said. “They tend to gravitate toward sweets over vegetables if they’re just on their own.”
Yanke has actually been looking for ways to get her girls jazzed, like jump-up-and-down thrilled, about eating healthy.
At the Hy-Vee in Bettendorf on Saturday mornings, that’s just what Yanke found.
The Hy-Vee location on Devils Glenn Road offers kids in the kitchen cooking classes twice a month — ranging from vegetable-filled smoothies to make-your-own fruit pizzas.
After a class earlier this month, which featured recipes for summer snacks, Yanke’s kids burst through the front door ready to cook along with all-healthy items.
“They had a blast, and they immediately wanted to make those recipes,” she said. “We pressure healthy eating, but I think it helps to get them involved in the process pretty than just putting something on the plate.”
That’s the idea behind the classes, according to Kim Denman, Hy-Vee’s in-store registered dietitian who hosts the classes and creates recipes catered to kids ages 4-8, such as Mexican wrap-ups and frozen banana yogurt bites.
“When kids go through the whole process from beginning to end, they’re more excited about what they’re making and eating,” she said.
Denman, who graduated from Western Illinois University, has actually worked along with Hy-Vee for three years. But her passion for nutrition goes way back to high school, when her mother was diagnosed along with diabetes.
“I remember going along with her to a meeting along with a dietitian and hearing about how her lifestyle should change,” she said. “It was scary, but we likewise felt like we had a plan.”
This was the moment, Denman said, that decided her future career.
“I wanted to be the person who came up along with a plan,” she said. “I didn’t have actually that as kid.”
Denman creates meal plans for customers, she offers tips for wondering shoppers in the aisles, prepares snack packs for quick-grabs at the store and hosts presentations about healthy-eating habits around the Quad-Cities.
“When you’re shopping for food, you sometimes need a person to say do this or don’t do this,” she said. “And sometimes, you need something you know that’s healthy and ready to go.”
When it comes to excuses, she hears the “I’m too busy” line over and over again.
“Eating a well-balanced meal is usually the first thing to go when we get busy,” she said. “So if you get kids thinking about food early, that mindset might change.”
Kendall Place is hoping that will happen. She and her three kids are regulars at Denman’s classes.
“We get to try brand-new things and learn brand-new recipes, and do it together,” she said. “My kids love getting creative and that they can do a lot of on their own.”
Plus, Place said it’s a cost-effective way to test food comfort zones.
“I don’t want to spend $20 on ingredients for something they won’t eat,” she said. “This way, we know what they like before buying — you never know along with kids.”
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