• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Nourishing Gourmet

Nourishing. Satisfying. Gourmet.

  • THM Coaching
  • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact
  • Recipes
  • Cookbooks
    • Everyday Nourishing Food
    • Salad Cookbook
    • Soup Cookbook

3 Reasons to Consider Serving Nourishing Foods at Holiday Meals

November 18, 2014 by KimiHarris Leave a Comment

Thanks for stopping by! If you're interested in healthy eating check out my free gifts! and subscribe to get regular email updates. *Some links may be affiliate.*
Thanks for stopping by! If you're interested in healthy eating check out my free gifts! and subscribe to get regular email updates. *Some links may be affiliate.*

3 reasons to serve nourishing food at holiday meals (it's a delicious tradition, and helps your kids learn to love good food!) Holiday meals are times of throwing caution to the wind, and plowing through unhealthy foods and lots of sugar, right? I don’t know about you, but I find that there are more enjoyable and delicious ways to celebrate (though we always include delicious desserts too!). Our culinary experience has only grown more delicious as we’ve added in nourishing foods into our holiday meals. Plus, and most importantly to us, it’s also a great way to build nourishing foods into your child’s food memory bank. Let me explain.

The traditions we brought with us

Both my husband and I brought our own family traditions into our new little family. His family opened relative’s gifts Christmas Eve; mine opened our new PJ’s for the year Christmas Eve. His family spent hours driving around looking for a Christmas tree and came home and ate gingerbread; mine came home and decorated and ate whatever goodies we wanted that year.

And then there were the traditional holiday foods. We both grew up with the familiar holiday foods of America on our table, but there are a lot of variances on how they are prepared. His family made mashed yams with marshmallows; mine made candied yams with marshmallows. His family spent time carefully hand chopping cranberries and oranges for a tart cranberry salad while mine made a sweet creamy cranberry salad. His family made lightly steamed green beans with a garlic olive oil; we had long-cooked green beans with bacon, carrots and potatoes.

As we have merged our two traditions, we have learned to love each other’s food (though we both still stand by our childhood method of making yams!). But we wanted to do more than just decide what method of cooking yams to take on for our meal, we also wanted to build nourishing foods into our family’s meal.

Primary reason? For the love of our children.

It occurred to me early in my mothering that I had a wonderful opportunity with my children. If I build nourishing foods into holiday meals, their nostalgic food memories of holidays would be built around nourishing foods, not junk food. (I also felt this way about normal childhood dinners).

A story that has been sweeping the virtual world is one about a chef who is selling homemade broth in cups from a window store in New York. There has been so much excitement about this new venture that a local-to-me restaurant was asking their customers if they should also feature this at their restaurant!

But what struck me about the story is that his love of delicious homemade broths started at a young age because they were served at holiday meals,

He says, “I grew up in an Italian household, and brodo is something you have at all the holidays,” he says. “Every Christmas dinner, every Easter dinner, they start with broth.”

This was exactly what I wanted to help my children do – to treat nourishing foods (like homemade broth) as celebration worthy and building holiday celebration into those foods. Now that Italian boy has grown up, and first he made homemade broths a big part of his flavor profile in his restaurant and now he is bringing that goodness to New York one cupful at a time. (You can read about the health benefits of broth here).

What bringing nourishing foods into the meal has looked like for us

What this has looked like for us so far is mostly just improving the ingredients in certain dishes to be more nourishing (like our yam recipes). And using good ingredients, like homemade broth, in making the gravy whenever possible. Thankfully, many holiday dishes are already deliciously healthy if you buy the right ingredients for them.

But on top of that, I have tried to gently introduce certain “superfood” nourishing food items as well. Last Thanksgiving, I brought along this liver pate (read why you should eat liver here) along with crackers and home pickled onion slices for everyone to snack on as an appetizer as we worked on finishing the meal. (My kids enjoyed it, and I was surprised to find that many others liked it as well).

This year, we are thinking of adding in a really light soup (perhaps a very broth-y soup with a little pasta or rice and herbs) as a first course. (Can you tell that the New York chef inspired me?!).

My mom started making amazing autumn salads to serve at holiday meals when I was in high school that I only needed to tweak to serve our needs. And I have even added other extra vegetable dishes in the past such as roasted Brussels sprouts (which are to die for!). And we have kept both family’s delicious green bean recipes as-is (though we both prefer the bacon slow cooked version).

3 reasons this has been a win!

1. Our meals taste better

And you know what? As we have experimented with adding in different healthy foods into holiday meals our culinary experience has only improved. I still remember a few large extended family meals where everyone had brought carb-loaded, cream-of-whatever laced dishes, and not much else. (This is what happens when you tell everyone to bring their favorite dish! You end up with four choices of stuffing, 2 mashed potatoes dishes, and creamy corn, and turkey). We sat down to very bland looking plates of white carbs, and had to lay around the rest of the day to recover, only to stuff ourselves with pie and whipped cream a few hours later.

I’m still not quite sure why that was supposed to be a fun way to celebrate any holiday!

2. Meals are better balanced

When you add in dishes like delicious green salads, well-prepared vegetable dishes, light soups, and liver pate, you definitely won’t end up with a plate of all white carbs. You end up with lots of colors, textures, and yes, nutritional value!

Sure, you can overeat at any meal, but you are much more likely to leave the meal feeling satisfied, not stuffed to the sickening point. If you leave out MSG heavy cream of soups in your dishes, your body isn’t having to deal with any reactions to it either (for those of us who are sensitive – and many of us are).

3. Our kids grow up knowing good food

And finally, our kids are hardly perfect in how they eat, and they can be frustratingly picky at times. But I am thrilled with many of the nourishing and healthy things that they love, and I know the reason they love it is simply because I gave them the opportunity to try it. Some nourishing foods are still hit and miss with them, but I figure I am giving their palate a good head start by the introduction to yummy nourishing foods. If you are wondering, we rarely make our kids eat more than a bite or two of a new food. We just let them try it whenever we serve it, and more often than not, after a few tries they eat it without any complaints.

A word on shared holiday meals:

Granted, many of us are not cooking the entire holiday meal, so we don’t have control over everything served. Generally for us, it has been fairly easy to bring along dishes that help bring this concept to life even when not every item is made exactly how I would have made it. But we’ve also known that we can make our own traditions on different holiday days. For example, my family had a tradition of serving clam chowder on Christmas Eve that I love! (My nourishing version of that family favorite is in my cookbook, Ladled: Nourishing Soups for All Seasons – where I share how to make it dairy-free as well).

So far, this adventure of bringing nourishing foods more into the meal has met with great success! In fact, the only times I have struggled is more with trying to recreate foods that meet our food intolerance list. The nourishing part of the equation has just meant better food in every way for all of us.

What about you? Do you try to bring any healthy/nourishing foods into holiday meals?

Related: 

  • Grain Free Pumpkin Recipes fit for Thanksgiving or Christmas
  • 25 Real Food Nourishing Thanksgiving Dishes 
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts

KimiHarris

I love beautiful and simple food that is nourishing to the body and the soul. I wrote Fresh: Nourishing Salads for All Seasons and Ladled: Nourishing Soups for All Seasons as another outlet of sharing this love of mine. I also love sharing practical tips on how to make a real food diet work on a real life budget. Find me online elsewhere by clicking on the icons below!

Latest posts by KimiHarris (see all)

  • 2 Ingredient Peppermint Bark - December 21, 2022
  • Herbal Hibiscus Lemonade (Keto, THM) - March 16, 2022
  • Creamy Curry Red Lentil Soup - December 8, 2021

Filed Under: For the Kids, Nutrient Dense Foods

Previous Post: « Grain Free Pumpkin Recipes Fit for Thanksgiving and Christmas!
Next Post: Soaked Pumpkin Pancakes with Apple Cider Syrup »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

ConvertKit Form

Get Every Recipe

And the insider's view from our kitchen

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Follow Me

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS

Search

Please Read:

The information you find here at The Nourishing Gourmet is meant to help you become a better cook! This site is primarily for sharing family friendly recipes. It's not meant to give medical advice or to make any health claims on the prevention or curing of diseases.This site is only for informational and educational purposes. Please discuss with your own, qualified health care provider before adding in supplements or making any changes in your diet. Also, any links to sponsors or affiliates (including Amazon) may give me a percentage of the sale or a pay per click. Thank you for supporting this site.

Categories

  • $10 Main (42)
  • $5 Dishes (43)
  • 52 ways to save money on a healthy diet (53)
  • AIP (23)
  • Baked Goods (83)
  • Beverages (72)
  • Breakfast and Brunch (61)
  • Condiments (8)
  • Dairy Free (492)
  • Desserts (184)
  • Dietary Needs (6)
  • Egg Free (11)
  • Egg Free (86)
  • For the Kids (66)
  • For the Love of Food and Books (18)
  • Gluten Free (484)
  • Grain Free (95)
  • Health (75)
  • Kitchen Tools (4)
  • Main Dishes (126)
  • Nourishing Frugal Recipes (167)
  • Nourishing Frugal Tips (70)
  • Nourishing Practices (56)
  • Nutrient Dense Foods (70)
  • Q and A (15)
  • Salads (39)
  • Sides (101)
  • Snacks (124)
  • Soups (50)
  • The Healthy $1 Menu (21)
  • The Low Energy Guide to Healthy Cooking (18)
  • THM (2)
  • Trim Healthy Mama (2)
  • Uncategorized (846)
  • Vegan (241)
  • Vegetarian (361)

Recent Posts

  • 2 Ingredient Peppermint Bark
  • Herbal Hibiscus Lemonade (Keto, THM)
  • Creamy Curry Red Lentil Soup
  • One-Pot Gluten-Free Mac and Cheese
  • Healthy Pumpkin Spice Granola
  • Crispy Pumpkin Spice Granola (oil-free)
  • Why I Use THM Principles Now
  • Vietnamese Beef Noodle Salad
  • Coconut Flour Pancakes
  • Instant Pot Mexican Shredded Chicken

Recent Comments

  • Dorene St G on Cracker Toffee (Easy Peasy Christmas Candy)
  • Nadia Kriston on Finding a Toaster Oven Without Nonstick
  • KimiHarris on How to make heavenly coconut milk whipped cream (with an isi dispenser)
  • KimiHarris on Autumn Beef Stew (Tomato Free)
  • KimiHarris on How to make heavenly coconut milk whipped cream (with an isi dispenser)

Fresh: Nourishing Salads for All Seasons

Get Every Recipe

And the insider's view from our kitchen

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Footer

Privacy

Copyright © 2023 · Foodie Pro & The Genesis Framework