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Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family: Orchestrating and Enjoying the Family Meal

Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family: Orchestrating and Enjoying the Family Meal
By Ellyn Satter M.S. R.D. L.C.S.W. B.C.D

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Product Description

Ellyn Satter's Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family takes a leadership role in the grassroots movement back to the family table. More a cooking primer than a cookbook, this book encourages singles, couples, and families with children to go to the trouble of feeding themselves well. Satter uses simple, delicious recipes as a scaffolding on which to hang cooking lessons, fast tips, night-before suggestions, in-depth background information, ways to involve kids in the kitchen, and guidelines on adapting menus for young children. In chapters about eating, feeding, choosing food, cooking, planning, and shopping, the author entertainingly helps readers have fun with food while not eating unhealthily or too often. She cites current studies and makes a convincing case for lightening up on fat and sodium without endangering ourselves or our children. The book demonstrates Satter's dictum that “your positive feelings about food and eating will do more for your health than adhering to a set of rules about what to eat and what not to eat.”


Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #82360 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-10-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 256 pages

Features


Editorial Reviews

Review
A philosophy of moderation and common sense that fosters good health, good eating habits and, most of all, a loving relationship between parents and children. -- The Washington Post

A uniquely comforting, now-I'm-on-the-right-track approach... warm, sensible, professional and expert advice about what is, after all, a universal set of situations. -- Family Journal

I am going to try your recipe for Yellow Spaghetti, which will give me an opportunity to revisit bacon, a banned food item for longer than I can remember. I appreciate your good-humoured and thoughtful work. -- Recovering Enthusiast

I love your book and I am having so much fun planning menus and learning to cook! I have never planned menus unless I was on a diet, but I am now and I am enjoying my food and feel safe because I know what is coming next. -- Recovering Dieting Casualty

It's wonderful when she says, "the secret of feeding a healthy family is to love good food, trust yourself and share that with your children." Encouraging people to eat well is far better than laying on all the rules. -- Nutrition Educator

When Satter says, "a family is what you are when you start taking care of yourself," it makes it OK to go to the trouble of feeding myself. Secrets was written for me, as well as for people with children. -- Reviewer

From the Author
Why did I write this book? It's part of my mission to revolutionize eating and feeding. But like any worthwhile project I have ever done, I backed into it. I thought I had a clear direction but what I hadn't anticipated is that, like a spirited child, Secrets has been a most willful book! In response to reader request, I started out to write a short and simple primer about child feeding following my golden rule, the division of responsibility in feeding: The parent is responsible for the what, when and where of feeding, the child is responsible for the how much and whether of eating. The problem that soon became apparent is that the cornerstone of that division of responsibility is family meals, and today's families have extraordinary difficulty getting meals on the table. It's not for lack of commitment or trying. There are too many barriers: lack of time and food skills, guilt and anxiety about eating and, not the least, all the rules that have taken the fun out of eating. Thus, Secrets turned into a book about reclaiming the family meal for the enjoyable, connecting, soothing and energizing backbone of the family. We all absolutely depend on knowing we are going to be fed. To do well with eating, we have to have meals. We must make meals a priority or we will scare ourselves and our children, whether we know it or not. We'll grab at not-so-good food, and end up feeling hungry and unsatisfied, both emotionally and physically.

About the Author
I was born and raised on a farm in South Dakota and moved to Wisconsin to do an internship in dietetics after I graduated from SD State University in Brookings. I have remained here since, marrying and raising three now-grown children: a girl and two boys. My daughter is married and has three daughters. After earning a masters in nutrition at the University of Wisconsin in Madison I practiced as an outpatient dietitian at a large medical practice. I wrote my first book about child nutrition, Child of Mine; Feeding with Love and Good Sense on the cusp of my transition to becoming a mental health professional. It was intended as a farewell gift to my own sweet and wonderful experiences with raising my children and my clinical practice as a dietitian in pediatrics.

To my surprise, I have become an authority on child nutrition and feeding and have gone on to consult, teach, train, write magazine and journal articles and write books two and three: How to Get Your Kid to Eat...But Not Too Much and Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family. I keep trying to find time to write about adults and their eating, something more about children seems to come up and claim my attention. Children have a way of doing that! In my 35 years of practice I have developed a uniquely freeing and effective approach to helping adults with their eating. That book may be called something like Secrets of Being a Healthy Eater, but the title smacks of tofu and virtue. My son-in-law suggested Celebrate the Cookie, which has a nice ring to it but implies a cookie cookbook. I have nothing against cookie cookbooks, but I don't plan to write one. The current title attempt is Eating Joyfully in a Food-Crazed World. Suggestions are welcome.

In these times of book-world upheaval, my solution to being an economically solventor perhaps survivingauthor has been to diversify. Along with my writing and training endeavors and after getting a second masters in clinical social work, for the last 20 years I have been in private practice as a psychotherapist specializing in eating disorders. Ten years ago I established Ellyn Satter Associates with the mission of providing resources about eating and feedingbooks, teaching materials, training materials and trainingfor the public and for professionals.


Customer Reviews

Excellent for parents of all cooking abilities5
Ellyn Satter seems to direct this book at parents with minimal cooking experience or desire. This is probably justified based on her topic, but I am a happy and experienced home cook and I really enjoyed the book too. She explains useful tips for adapting foods for little eaters and how to round out meals with appealing vegetables and desserts. I love this book! A great companion to Child Of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense, because it provides lots of recipes to help apply the very sensible eating principles from Child Of Mine.

Common sense and recipes to boot!5
Ellyn Satter understands kids, parents and the pressures of modern life, and shows us how to navigate our way to a healthier diet! No guilt here, either. Just common sense and good advice.

Learn to eat!4
This is an excellent primer for parents (and maybe even just young singles or couples starting out on their own) who need help with basic feeding skills like cooking and grocery shopping.

Ellyn Satter's advice is always very down-to-earth and her attitude toward food is relaxed. Where else would you find a Registered Dietitian recommending a menu of hot dogs, potato chips, and ice cream?? (Of course, not ALL her menus are like this, because she really understands the concepts of balance and moderation, which are so sorely lacking in these diet-crazed times.)

An excellent companion to "How to Get Your Kid to Eat...But Not Too Much,' both of these books speak to nutritionally-challenged adults as much as they do to children.