We can appreciate how hard it can seem to get a well-balanced meal on the table during busy nights juggling sports, dance class, homework and work or school events because we’ve been there.  Here are some tips to fit healthy meals into your busy schedule.

1. Planning is essential; develop systems that make the purchasing, preparing and partaking easier.
2. Keep it simple. Family meals don’t have to be elaborate to be healthy and effective. Come up with easy ways to balance your meal with simple vegetable side dishes or fruit and yogurt for dessert.
3. Have healthy food on hand and eat from your freezer or pantry on busy weeknights.
4. Prepare double batches of food when you’re less rushed so you can cook once, eat twice.
5. Family meal does not have to be dinner, breakfast or lunch may work better in some households.
6. Toughen up. Offer your family one meal that includes all five-food groups and everyone should be able to find something they’ll want to eat.
7. Turn off technology and tune into each other.
8. Make conversation the focus of family meals, but keep it light. The dinner table is not the place for discipline.
9. Share the work. Enlist help from the family, from planning the shopping list to making lunches, setting the table, pouring the milk and clean up. Eating as a family is truly comforting, from toddlers, teens to adults. Family meals can become a cherished tradition for the whole family.