We're lactopaleo, with a 4.5 year old and a nursing 20 month old, eating a wide variety these days, including seasonal summer fruit.

For a decent idea of what's in regular rotation, check out the ~110 (and growing) posts where I show pictures and descriptions of my preschooler's (and some of my husband's) packed lunches.

Otherwise, typical day for us:

• Breakfast (any of the following) - Fruit, plain organic whole fat yoghurt (maybe with a touch of raw honey), eggs cooked in pastured butter, leftover animal protein from the night before

• Lunch (if at home, any of the following) - Leftover animal protein from the night before, fresh veggie crudites (carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, sliced peppers, etc.), avocado, fresh fruit, soup using leftover proteins and bone broth, hard cheese, nuts, liverwurst cold from the fridge, sweet potatoes or regular potatoes

• Dinner (any of the following) - Grilling a lot of meat these days, add some fresh or sauteed veggies (w/healthy fat like coconut oil or pastured butter, of course), crock pot slow cooked meat and veggies, curries with fish and veggies and coconut milk), oven-roasted chicken, breakfast for dinner via bacon and eggs, sweet potatoes or regular potatoes

Breakfast - 2 eggs (whichever style we are eating that morning) a piece of bacon and a sausage or a pice of ham and a half teaspoon of fish oil.

We pack his lunch for daycare which usually consists of meat from last nights dinner (chicken, steak, salmon, halibut or the like) 4 florets of steamed broccoli, 3-4 mini steamed carrots, 1/2 cup organic greek-style high fat yogurt, 2 homemade preserved apricots, a homemade pickle, a container of fresh berries, 3-4 cherry tomatoes, an apple, and he usually drinks 2 bottles of milk at daycare.

Dinner - kale or chard, broccoli or some other veggie, once or twice a week I'll make homemade yam fries for him, and then the meat dish. The kid can pack away half a steak or half a chicken breast easily or a whole serving of salmon. Then generally he'll want some more berries or watermelon (Lately I've made homemade popsicles by blending fresh berries and over-ripe watermelon and then freezing it- he loves them). Then another bottle.

Holy man that kid can eat a lot for a 2 year old!!!

Wow that is awesome and I hope I can try this when I have children. I'm so tired of hearing people say, how can you deprive your child from hotdogs and snacks. Gross! If that's deprivation hen my child will be eating like a king' lol

We just switched to paleo style a couple weeks ago. My daughter literally cried her eyes out when she realized that meant no more biscuits and gravy. Of course, 2 minutes later she was talking about how it could be cool to try new things...

Anyway, the kids pretty much eat whatever we eat. I have an 8 yo, 5 yo and 11 mo. I'm still nursing the baby so she just eats bits of whatever we're having.

A day for the kids looks like a paleo muffin/carrot w almond butter/eggs/bacon for breakfast (not all together, these are just some of their faves), leftovers from dinner/turkey rollups for lunch with a fruit and veg, and then whatever we're having for dinner.

Your menu looks awesome for the baby! :) So far, I haven't been super strict with the kids' diets outside the home. We've had a few opportunities to connect non-paleo food consumption with total meltdowns, which is helping to show the kids what kind of effect their food choices make on their moods/behavior/fun time. I like to leave the choice in their hands when they are elsewhere so they can weigh their options instead of just rebelling against whatever I say ;).

Peggy the Primal Parent has a great blog you may want to check out: http://theprimalparent.com/

She has a series of posts on kids food and a new forum.

Hmm. You basically have your child on an Atkins induction style diet. Please feed your child some starch asap.

What a nutritious diet! My daughter's looked similar when she was that age. She ate a bit more carbs though. I mixed raw egg yolk in mashed banana, squeezed fresh oj sometimes, offered a little sweet potato and even gave her just a bit of white rice as sushi (she loved, and still loves, her raw fish). When we lived in California, she drank a little fermented raw milk too (this was after 18 months of breast feeding of course).

As far as the playground, f*** 'em. Who cares what everyone else is doing!

Or, you could go get yourself in a new play group...

For my daughter's first couple of years I was involved in the WAPF meetup group in the South San Francisco Bay. We met up a couple of times a week to play and hang out. While they ate fermented grains and I didn't, the food at the gatherings was always healthy and the mindset so much different than your average American family.

I have a 6 MO and have just started feeding her solids about two weeks ago. (Am still nursing and will continued to do so until she's at least 18 months.) She has a cold and is recovering from an ear infection (my 3 YO goes to preschool and brings home lots of bugs) and her appetite is limited, but I started her on Earth's Best and Happy Baby foods. She eats those easily.

Then I spent a weekend making her homemade baby foods of pureed squash, sweet potato, green beans, avocado, banana, etc and mixed them with bone broth. I made them as smooth as possible and even pushed them through a sieve, but she hates them. The face she makes when I put the food in her mouth is hysterical, but also frustrating. I have tried not using broth and just using water to puree the food, but the result is the same. I am thinking it's the texture. I just can't compete with the industrial blenders.

I suppose I could just keep offering it until she's hungry enough to eat it, but she's on antibiotics and is not supposed to take the medicine on an empty stomach. Also, her weight gain has slowed way down since month 4, so I know breast milk alone can't sustain her. Any suggestions?

My 3 YO, on the other hand, eats pretty much whatever I put in front of her and always has. She eats "clean" at home, eggs and bacon with avocado or tomatoes for breakfast, a snack of nuts after school, sometimes mixed with real, plain Greek yogurt. Dinner is grass-fed meat with a side of veggies cooked in lard or bacon fat. I'll maker her real fruit popsicles, chocolate mousse with coconut cream and dark, dark chocolate, for the occasional treat. She eats an insane amount, but is also a very active 3 YO with surprising muscle definition.

I haven't yet packed her lunches for preschool. What they serve is pretty abysmal: corn dogs, pizza, French fries, macaroni and cheese, etc. all with a serving of salad or baby carrots on the side. Luckily, they no longer offer juice, just milk or water, but snacks are usually cookies, pretzels, or crackers. Desserts are sometimes seasonal fruits, sometimes popsicles or jello.

I can't decide whether to go that extra step to pack a lunch for her or whether to settle for the fact that since she gets the majority of her meals from home, eating the SAD 1.5 times a day, 5 days a week won't hurt her. What do you guys think?

I couldn't possibly list what my kids ate here, since they eat what we eat. Our 15mo baby, 3 1/2 yo and 6yo all eat everything (with a few small exceptions, as we all have).

Their favorites are meat with crispy skin and on the bones, soups, stews, lettuce wraps, things they can dip and anything that looks like, tastes like or has the name of anything in the standard american diet (put a "chip" at the end of the vegetables you're serving and they become magic to a toddler).

You can see more ideas at these posts too:

http://paleoparents.com/start-here-paleo-parents-101/faq/

http://paleoparents.com/2011/no-really-what-do-your-kids-eat/

http://paleoparents.com/2011/breakfast-for-dinner-thursday-v2/

http://paleoparents.com/2011/toddler-training-inspired-by-heather/

Most importantly, just relax and enjoy food with your kids. Teach them it nourishes their bodies and helps build muscle, a strong brain and sharp eyes but can be quite delicious and fun too:)

Stacy & Matt

I'd love to know what other people who don't have dairy do!

Here is what my 13 month old ate today, which is reasonably indicative.

Breakfast: Breastfeed then green smoothie (beet leaves, mango, mandarin, fish oil and kefir water) sweet potato hash with onion, parsley and wild salmon

Bottle of alt milk (today was hemp)

Morning Tea: kabanosy sausage, grapes, coconut balls

BF

Lunch: Mackeral, vegetables bucksheat bread with misomite

BF

BF

Dinner: liver, beans, carrots and beets

BF

He is demand breastfed, I offer 3 a day, morning lunch and night, and he varies whether he asks for more. Today he did a lot!

I haven't made bone broth in a while, should get on to that!

I let my kids eat grass fed butter and cheese, but not straight milk or anything like that.

Breakfast: Sausage or bacon and eggs. Usually almond milk to go with.

Lunch: Cold cuts wrapped around cheese, or just plain. A handful of nuts, some raw fruit and/or veggies. A small piece of dark chocolate.

Dinner: Protein and veggies. Usually a meat and a vegetable. My son generally gravitates toward the meats and my daughter gravitates toward the veggies. Sometimes they eat white rice with dinner.

That's a general day. My son is 6 and my daughter is 4. They both pretty much eat everything, so the menu varies. We might order a sausage crust pizza. We might make spaghetti squash pasta. I might make Paleo cupcakes. All depends on the day, but that's my "zero creativity 3 square meals" plan.

We don't over think it at all. Our 15 mo. old eats what we eat, and that's it. He gets eggs, bacon, and advocado for breakfast. Lunch is leftover meat from dinner, usually with squash or some other startchy food that we have. And dinner is just whatever meat and veggies we're having. Simple and easy. No need for snacks or anything, he doesn't get the crazy freak-out sugar crashes that other kids get, so we don't need to appease him. The only thing that's hard is that if he's starting to get fussy, you can just be like other parents and pull a cracker out of a box and give it to him, you actually need to prepare real food. But that's a small price to pay for health.