It’s a daily struggle to get enough fruit and veggies into our kids. And that doesn’t include focusing on variety. It’s so easy to constantly fall back on whatever they’ll deign to eat unless you encourage them to eat a rainbow that is.

Today I Ate A Rainbow is the creation of a Canadian mama. It’s a magnetic chart that allows you to track the fruits and veggies your kids eat each day. For every colour they ingest they get a correspondingly coloured magnet to put on their chart with the goal of eating a rainbow by day’s end.  And rather than a pot of gold they’re given a rainbow achievement magnet when they’ve eaten red, orange, yellow, green and purple. You can get the chart with up to four sets of magnets so not only your tots but you and your significant other can work on eating a rainbow and it leads to some intense family rivalry, especially if you’re lagging behind your kids in the colour competition.

We’ve found it’s made mealtimes more positive and it leads to less stressful conversations around eating well. Plus we were surprised to discover that we’re actually eating more of a rainbow than we thought.  The chart and handy colour coded shopping list also helps us plan our meals and add more variety to our weekly shops. We’ve had our kids help us fill in the shopping list and been surprised by some of the fruits and veggies they’ve added, things we didn’t even realize they liked.

On their site you’ll also find handy info on dealing with picky eaters, nutrition info and colouring and activity pages for kids.

And it seems like the perfect time to start adopting the rainbow habit, what with it being harvest time and all. That way by the time the winter sets in and it’s harder to find all the colours of the rainbow in the stores your family will already be rainbow pros.

Today I Ate A Rainbow: www.todayiatearainbow.com