Tips on Getting DH to Cook Healthier? « Back to Group Discussions

[mattie426]

DH does most of the cooking. I really appreciate it. I often work until 8PM, and I have a small insurance billing business in addition to my 40 hr a week job. BUT it seems like EVERY meal features pasta. We both had blood work done recently, and it was not pretty. We have both gained weight since we have been together. I have tried to explain. My mom has tried to explain. She sent us a book that is pretty remedial. Like the food pyramid remedial. He insists that he just needs to work on controlling his portions. He will make couscous or white rice or sometimes quinoa for a few nights, then say that we haven't had pasta in forever, so it is OK to make spaghetti.

I am thinking about putting all of the couscous, pasta, white rice, etc. in a different, high cupboard and telling him he can only open it once a week. That seems extreme, but he keeps buying more and more. He enjoys shopping, so I let him do it, but he comes home with even more of the things I keep hoping we will run out of, and only rarely replenish.

Now, with baby growing, and my appetite starting to be funny, I really want to make healthier choices. I think he wants to do that too. The trouble is that he thinks he IS making healthy choices. He does make salad quite often, but it's like he has processed wheat amnesia, or blindness or something. Like if he just changes it up, he doesn't think about it all being the same, or that our main dish is a processed wheat product nearly every night.

I get tired of feeling like a nagging, ungrateful wife. After all, he is making dinner, which is more than a lot of husbands, but I just want us all to be healthy. I want him not to drop dead before our child is 18. I want to give our baby the best start we can. And I don't want to have to start taking cholesterol meds.

Have any of you been through this? How did you get your partner to understand that healthy eating is more than making a side salad, and putting "less" on the plate?

[mattie426]

Plus, he snores unbearably when he is overweight, and I can't get good sleep.

[katalopolis]

Maybe you could do the grocery shopping together sometime? That way you can have some more influence on what comes into the house.
My fiance does the cooking in our relationship too (yay! I hate cooking but don't mind doing dishes) and one thing that he likes is if I point out things he's made in the past that I really liked or if I find a recipe I think we'll both like and suggest he try that. It might help your husband if he had some more specific pointers than just "no more pasta".

[chispita]

Some ideas:

- Limit the amount of pasta that goes into the house

- When you buy it, portion it out

- Make clear that you don't want pasta with your dinners, so if he wants some it can only be as a side dish for himself.

- Do some cooking together on the weekends and freeze it for the week

- Cook new things together so that he'll feel confident recreating them on his own

[mpmckinney]

I don't know if this would help but we started mixing half and half whole wheat pasta and regular. Nobody particularly loves the taste of the whole wheat but mixed takes the edge off and at least you're getting some of the benefit. It might be a place to start. 

[Serafina33]

I LOVE whole wheat pasta. White pasta tastes like nothing, to me, and I love the hearty taste of whole grain pasta, bread, rice, etc....   I make sure all the starch in the house is whole grain, including all the flours we have for baking.   Once in awhile I splurge, though, and make white basmati rice to go with Persian food because it just doesn't taste the same with brown rice.

I like chispita's advice about cooking together some things on the weekend you are excited about, so he'll feel more comfortable creating them on his own.  

Do the shopping, even though he enjoys it?  Just jump in there and stock up your kitchen and pantry jam-packed with all the healthy options and then email him a couple recipes each week that uses those ingredients saying, "The pic makes me salivate, want to try this tonight?"   It's probably just habit that makes him lazily revert to pasta-based menu items he's confident he can pull off without stressing in the kitchen or spending too much time, and once he breaks out of his comfort zone a few times and masters a few others that fits in with what you want, he'll just as comfortably pull those recipes off on a regular basis.  Especially if you slather on the praise for the meal and tell him how much  you and your growing baby appreciate his taking nutrition seriously.

[mrsandmrs]

You could try other kinds of pasta if you don't like the toothiness of the whole wheat pasta. I like it but my family doesn't. Barilla Plus has a lot of protein and fiber for pasta. You can also get gluten-free pastas that might be a little easier on you. I like quinoa pasta a lot.

You could try making a weekly meal plan together. We do this as much as we can. Everyone gets input on what we're having this week. It makes the grocery shopping a lot simpler as well (and takes away a lot of incentive to go out for dinner, which is a goal for us). It kind of helps with my food aversion right now, and I always advocate for breakfast-for-dinner, which is my favorite meal. Then, you can see in an organized way how much empty carbs are on your meal plan and say "we might have too many meals without enough nutrient-dense food, could we trade XYZ for this spaghetti dinner?" we have a list of favorite meals to make the weekly plan easier, so it's kind of like choosing off a menu of stuff we know we all like.

[mattie426]

Thanks for all the great ideas! I am going to start experimenting with them.

I just brought up the pasta issue with him, and he said we HAVE been eating less pasta. In fact, he hasn't made pasta since I brought it up before. Um... we had stir fry with noodles last night. His response? "You are expanding your definition to side dishes!" Um, yeah. Just because it is a side dish doesn't mean it isn't pasta... *eyeroll*

[letniaLynne]

We use a rice cooker to make life simple! It actually is easier than pasta if you can believe that!!! You can cook any grain in it and it always comes out perfectly! It feels like cheating. Rice, quinoa, kasha, millet, beans. Those are our favorite. You can even put a bit of butter in and use chicken broth verses water to make the meal a bit more special.

Our house rule is pasta once a week period. So if your in the mood for meatballs with sauce we have been known to do it with rice on the bottom. You would be surprised how good it actually tastes. We do stir fry over a grain. Baked chicken with a veggie and a grain on the side. Out food is very simple. veggie, grain, main dish ( usually a meat something). We also like soups and chili since you can hide almost ANYTHING in chili

[chispita]

Originally Posted by letniaLynne 

So if your in the mood for meatballs with sauce we have been known to do it with rice on the bottom. You would be surprised how good it actually tastes. 

This. I make a really good Bolognaise style sauce, if I do say so myself, enough for about three meals for each of us, and only one of those do I eat it over rice or pasta - for the others I just eat it by itself, maybe with a poached egg on top and some feta cheese (my DH will get rice or past if he wants - though he has to either ask for it or make it himself :-P)