You need to change your way of life when you want to cook healthy food for the family. And teaching kids to eat vegetables is hard but not impossible.

Cooking for some people require planning time and more planning. Not necessarily hours of planning. For example, you need to defrost the chicken legs in the morning and by 5pm, it maybe ready to cook. But, you need to add in the cutting, and spicing it before cooking. It's alot of work.
And i don't even follow a recipe.

Sounds like you need to demonstrate to her on how to cook. Cook together. It's hard to cook when you are taking care of little kids. They require alot of attention. And when you are cooking, you can't just turn away.

Buying food:
Instead of buying so much chicken in bone pieces, go with the chicken breast and chicken leg. All you need to do is wash, cut and marinate it with some type of spice you want. Cut all your vegetables into pieces and put them into containers or bags in the fridge. Take them out ready to cook.

Method of cooking:
Read about slow cookers or instant pots. I prefer slow cookers because after you put it in, you plug the pot in and let it cook for hours. You can't really burn the food.

You can cook extra and reheat them in the microwave for another day's meals. Like i said, with kids, you don't have alot of time to cook.

Anonymous wrote:If you can afford it, OP, this is a company created to make healthy meals for kids. They have meals for toddlers, kids and teens/adults. I ordered them for my elderly mom during lockdown and they are good and simple. It might be cheaper to order a meal for an older child and split it between your two littles. BUT, your wife has to commit to not sabotaging them and eating her french fries in front of the kids while they eat carrots.

https://www.nurturelife.com/menus/?navItem=teen-adult

This is not a real long-term solution for the situation in OP's house since the wife is not committed to it and it sounds like she'll go to the drive thru even if these meals are delivered.

If you can afford it, OP, this is a company created to make healthy meals for kids. They have meals for toddlers, kids and teens/adults. I ordered them for my elderly mom during lockdown and they are good and simple. It might be cheaper to order a meal for an older child and split it between your two littles. BUT, your wife has to commit to not sabotaging them and eating her french fries in front of the kids while they eat carrots.

https://www.nurturelife.com/menus/?navItem=teen-adult

Anonymous wrote:If she's now at home full time, she needs to learn to cook. I will admit I was a horrible cook until my kids were teenagers, but in my defense I worked full time and had a long commute. You are not going to be able to force her to learn to cook, but working with her to plan meals might give her the incentive she needs to do better. How is she obese if she was in the military? I have never met an obese service member ever. Also: I don't think meals for young children need to be particularly imaginative. They just need to be balanced and nutritious. Chicken nuggets, mac and cheese and apple slices one day a week is not a terrible dinner. See if you can meet her halfway and go from there.

Agree with this PP. He works and she stays home, but she doesn't cook? As someone who was working when my kids were young and made the mistake of feeding them a lot of fast food, work together for a few weeks to get her started, but let her know that it is important. Gut biome and its importance for both physical and mental health are now recognized and I feel terribly for the bad habits that I instilled in my kids.

Apologies for not reading all 17 pages...

Is it possible your wife is addicted to fast food? Is there anyway you could say "get it for yourself, but stop feeding it to the kids?"

Three bottles of Coke is disgusting - I hope you were exaggerating. It might be time to up the ante and go to some form of counseling because the contempt and frustration is obvious, and hoping your wife will suddenly change is a recipe for disappointment. Ideally it would be to get her into solo therapy so she can work through her junk food binging (she needs to admit it's a problem before anything will change), but it sounds like you guys need couples therapy too...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a classic 'live to eat' versus 'eat to live' living arrangement. The thread in the r/ship forum about picky eating ought to consider this scenario!

PP. I don't think this is. Plenty of people aren't super passionate about food, but cook healthy meals.

Agree. This is something else entirely. Plenty of people who 'eat to live" put together simple meals at home for their kids and don't hit the drive thru daily. Likewise, some people do "live to eat" fast food...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a classic 'live to eat' versus 'eat to live' living arrangement. The thread in the r/ship forum about picky eating ought to consider this scenario!

PP. I don't think this is. Plenty of people aren't super passionate about food, but cook healthy meals.

Yep. I’m an eat to live. Our meals are mostly vegetables with a meat side. I refuse to make “kids food” like nuggets or Kraft. I don’t care what they taste like but I’m into the nutrition of them. Dh is the passionate cook in our household. I let him make whatever he wants.

Sounds like you hate your wife. Your posts reek of contempt.

Anonymous wrote:This is a classic 'live to eat' versus 'eat to live' living arrangement. The thread in the r/ship forum about picky eating ought to consider this scenario!

PP. I don't think this is. Plenty of people aren't super passionate about food, but cook healthy meals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spending quality time with two young children is so important and valuable. I don't think that should be overlooked. They grow up fast. I agree you should prepare dinner early for everyone and no pressure on her to join. But one would hope she would, over time.

Chances are if she’s obese, eats like crap, and has sleep apnea, she doesn’t have much energy to do much with them. Does she run around with them? Go for nature walks? Or just sits, reads to them, and watches them play?

OP again. Yes, she talks a lot to them and plays with them. A nature walk is completely not something she'd do but she'll take them to pumpkin patches and the play area at Burger King.

Anonymous wrote:Spending quality time with two young children is so important and valuable. I don't think that should be overlooked. They grow up fast. I agree you should prepare dinner early for everyone and no pressure on her to join. But one would hope she would, over time.

Chances are if she’s obese, eats like crap, and has sleep apnea, she doesn’t have much energy to do much with them. Does she run around with them? Go for nature walks? Or just sits, reads to them, and watches them play?

This is a classic 'live to eat' versus 'eat to live' living arrangement. The thread in the r/ship forum about picky eating ought to consider this scenario!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She is setting the kids up to be obese. Eventually a bad diet catches up to you and it's best to teach good habits. Talk to the kids,say it's not healthy. Shoe them episodes of sesame street and other shows that say it's not healthy.

You start cooking. Make dinner on Sundays for the entire week. Prep a lasagna but include spinach in the sauce, sece it with salad. Set up a casserole. Start with starches and veggies and then move on to proteins that your wife can throw in the microwave. Help her find a quick 30 minute meal that doesn't involve pasta that your kids will eat. Once the kids begin to want real food they won't let her go to fast food restaurants.

OP here again. I spoke with my wife today and told her that she needed to clean up her eating habits. She'll drink 3 bottles of Coke throughout the day and complains that she doesn't have the time to work out with me as I am getting back to the gym. I would really like her to make small changes but so far it's going nowhere.

You “told her”. What does she say about her eating habits? Does she agree that they could be better? Or is she fine with it? Again, is she depressed and open to therapy?

She's not depressed. Far from it. She's happy to play with the kids and I think she hides behind needing to be with them all the time instead of actually doing household chores, preparing meals etc. When my dad and his wife visited for a few days (out-of-state), my wife didn't prepare a single meal and my dad, his wife and I had to make dinner or buy groceries instead and make plates for ourselves. She calls herself a picky eater but she isn't willing to put in the work to live a healthy lifestyle.

I was on your side OP, but now you sound like an ass. If your family visited why would you not be the one to shop and cook? Plenty of people hold jobs and take care of thier guests. And you told her to clean up her eating? Focus on what she is feeding the kids and what you can do to help make that happen.

Anonymous wrote:Spending quality time with two young children is so important and valuable. I don't think that should be overlooked. They grow up fast. I agree you should prepare dinner early for everyone and no pressure on her to join. But one would hope she would, over time.

Ridiculous that the wife cannot even spend an hour preparing a meal for her family. What’s the point of quality time when everyone eats poorly?