Helping kids to eat their greens

When Calgary Avansino, contributing editor of British Vogue and author of Keep It Real, a new guide to healthy, plant-based family eating, arrived in London from the US 16 years ago, it wasn't easy being a health-conscious vegetarian who liked to cook.

“It was like a completely different world in London when I first moved here to what I was used to in California, and to what it is like now,” she says. “I vividly remember walking around the shops – in my yoga pants, not the done thing then – searching out ingredients that I thought were pretty standard pantry items: quinoa, nut milk.”

Now the mother of three (Ava, 10; Margot, six; and one-year-old Remy) shops at Planet Organic, Wholefoods and farmers’ markets, and gets a weekly veg box delivery, with which she cooks simple but interesting family meals.

“We are a mixed bag,” she says. “My eldest daughter is vegetarian – her own doing – and the other two eat meat from time to time. We are a predominantly plant-based household, which means lots of veggies, fruit, grains, seeds, nuts and legumes. But we aren’t strict about labels – if something looks good to you, try it.”

Avansino’s book has been described as “a healthy eating bible”, but rather than preaching, it gently encourages what is an adaptable and inclusive way to eat.

“A plant-based way of living doesn’t mean you only eat plants,” she says. “It’s simply about adding more of the right things to your plate at every meal.”

You'll have turned 154 pages before you reach the first recipe in Keep It Real, but you'll have learned much about the benefits of eating more vegetables, fruits and grains, and of avoiding sugar ("the devil in all his disguises"), and about how to shop for and store fresh food effectively.

It’s a well researched and engaging read that reflects Avansino’s busy lifestyle as a working mother who loves to cook. And her children contribute too, giving opinions on what works and what doesn’t when introducing healthy foods to children. “Don’t give us new foods when we are in a bad mood and tired from school” and “Tell us what’s in it and what it will taste like” are useful insights, but what about “Let us watch TV while we are eating new things”?

“I love those tips,” Avansino says. “They are genuinely theirs and I adore that they added such an honest and important element to my book . . . but the one I don’t allow is watching TV while eating. That’s a habit I don’t want to start.”

Recipes from Keep It Real, by Calgary Avansino (Yellow Kite, £25). Avansino will speak at the Image Clean Start Seminar at the Marker Hotel, Dublin, on February 25th