The Importance of Family Dinners

The workday is done, everyone is finally home, and you are tired. A seat on the couch in front of the TV is calling your name, but unfortunately so are those hungry kids, the taller one known as your husband included. It is so tempting to tell everyone to fend for themselves or let the pizza delivery man take care of it.  But did you know that there are many more benefits of family meals for your whole family beyond just curing those hunger pangs?

The benefits of family dinners last long after you leave the table.

Some of the benefits are:

• Lower children’s obesity rates.
• Kids eat more vegetables.
• Overall better health.
• Better family relationships.
• Better grades.
• Kids are less likely to do drugs.

So how do you harness the power of family meals when you have limited time and ambition? What if you had a fridge full of healthy ingredients and a recipe for a quick, delicious meal? I definitely recommend a service like eMeals. It is so nice to have a menu and shopping list handed to you so you never have to do the “What’s for dinner?” dance. For you busy people out there (and really, who isn’t busy these days?), I would recommend either the Clean Eating Slow Cooker plan, the 30 Minute Meals plan, or the Clean Eating plan.

Healthy Meal Plans to Match your Active Lifestyle

Family meals should happen more than once a year.

With Thanksgiving coming this week, you are probably planning on sitting down to a meal with your family. I hope your day is amazing and wonderful, full of delicious food and lots of precious family time. I also hope that you decide to make an effort to bring family dinners back into your home and enjoy that experience more often than just on holidays.You will be establishing traditions that will benefit every member of your family for years to come!

We love family dinner at our house! Even when the 4-year-old spends half of dinner crying under the table because I dared to put something green on her plate (happens every night, and every night she eventually decides the green stuff is delicious and she loves it), I love that we have a scheduled time to sit down together and just talk and bond over delicious food.

What can you do to have more dinners with your family? Even if you eat together only one more night per week, it can make such a difference! If the stress of meal planning is getting in your way, I strongly encourage you to let someone else do the hard work for you and try a free trial from eMeals.

How can eMeals help you have more dinners at home with your family?

• You get a full meal plan each week.
• You also are given a shopping list so you know exactly what you need and can get it all in one stop.
• The recipes are easy to make, and usually quick no matter which meal plan you choose.
• Saves you money! How many nights do you end up eating out because you aren’t sure what to eat and it’s late? How much does that cost you in the long run? eMeals pays for itself, sometimes with the first shopping trip!
• The free trial is a great way to take a test drive. You have nothing to lose!

We used to be pizza twice a week people. When we did “cook” at home, it was usually from packages and boxes, and was neither healthy or really all that tasty. Every once in awhile we would get fancy and cook something from scratch, but it seemed too hard to make a real meal for dinner every night. We thought this way was faster and cheaper. If only we had known how easy it could be! Now, even on the nights when I look up and realize that it’s suddenly dinnertime and we haven’t even started, I know I can get a delicious meal on the table in less time than pizza delivery would take!

So what are you going to do to make family meals more of a priority?

Sources: University of Rochester Health Encyclopedia, Child Development Institute

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