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I have a similar food philosophy. I try to cook from scratch as often as possible with fresh and high quality ingredients, but I'm not killing myself to make my own bread, pasta, etc., and I'll use some convenience items because, let's face it, it's impossible to cook from scratch every night.

For your questions:

1. I've been eating this way for a long time, so my kids were kind of born into it. My husband is perfectly happy to go along with it, but he's not a great cook.

2. As for the kids, I only make one dinner. If they don't like it I don't offer anything else. The rule is they have to try. If they truly don't like it then I'll let them have a piece of bread or some cheese, but no snacks, no separate dinner. I also try to make something that I know they will eat every other day.

3. Biggest hurdles are time and getting into ruts.

4. My older LO just had a nutrition unit at school, so he has a decent idea of what a balanced meal should look like. In general, we don't buy much junk food, but I'll say things like "you have to eat vegetables because they make you grow" or "one cookie is ok, but 5 is way too many and you'll get a tummy ache". So it's not really healthy vs not healthy, but vaguely trying to steer them towards good food choices.

@Mrs D: maybe for treat-type foods your rule can be you have to make it yourself from scratch with real ingredients? So juice in a box would be out, but juice you squeeze or get from a juicer is okay? Or cookies in a package are out, but homemade cookies are okay? I think just limiting the packaged/processed preservatives helps make treats more healthy. Also, realistically, you won't have the time to be making these treats very frequently, so your family will cut down on them naturally.

But to save time, you can use frozen veggies or processed meats if they are from companies who use real ingredients, low added salts, and no preservatives for example.

@Anagram: Yes! This about a lot of treats. We never really get packaged cookies (unless we are in a bind from a bakery). So the treat is when we make cookies or brownies or muffins at home.

Also, I make a lot of waffles and pancakes at home and keep them frozen. I like to make those from scratch anyways. Sometimes that with Peanut butter or nutella (obviously not healthy but in limited moderation) is a treat.

@Mrs D: DH doesn't like WW pasta that much, so we compromised on the Ronzoni veggie pasta.

@Mrs D: you can use a basic white sauce in place of condensed soup. I have a recipe for a base that you can mix up and keep in the fridge, then just add and boil. It's really easy.

Eta- also if you rely on boxed mixes for baking there are a lot of 'master baking mix' recipes out there that can be an easy replacement.

@Mrs D haven't tried it but this looks good http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/condensed-homemade-cream-chicken-soup-recipe/

We've gotten my 2 year old more into salads and fresh veggies by having him help make our salads (DH and I usually have one for lunch or dinner). At the very least he will nibble on a piece of something and spit it out. Then we will say "good try buddy!" We also make our salads more of a chopped salad - like thinly sliced lettuce, shredded carrots, chopped tomato, thin slices of cucumber - and add fun things like apples or raisins or chow mein noodles or croutons or glazed walnuts. I actually had my 2 year old eat a small plate of salad that way because he called it "noodles" and ate up the salad like pasta?? Even if that doesn't work, we can deconstruct it into a plate - chopped chicken, shredded carrots, a few croutons, apples.

We also started making more interactive meals - like mu shu pork wraps or lettuce wraps or tacos or nachos - things you have to assemble and are coincidentally chock full of veggies. Its a MESS with a 2 year old but we put a bib on him and get the splat mat out and let him go to town. It helps broaden his cultural palate and he's more willing to eat if its something he can dip or sorta play with.

We do white pasta at our house, but I've done 50/50 pasta and zoodles with it or puree a lot of veggies into our spaghetti sauce, which I think sorta balances it out.

We do halfsies on treats in the house too. Vanilla Greek yogurt with some sprinkles. Rice Krispies but I throw a cup or two of Fruity Pebbles into the mix and get some fun in there that way. Juice is always cut 50/50 with water. Fruit smoothies with yogurt and milk, but I throw in some frozen spinach or frozen green beans.

We eat a lot of frozen veggies - it cuts my prep time and its easier and I feel like I have less waste that way. And its really easy to throw a handful of frozen veggies into basically anything I cook and bulk it out with more nutrition.

I keep convenience food in the house - chicken nuggets, hot dogs, frozen pancakes - but I don't rely on them. I just want to be realistic and eat a balance of foods.

We sort of did things in stages. Which I would recommend. It's hard to revamp everything at once. We've been meal planners for a long time so that was easy. I also highly recommend meal planning. DH and I started doing mason jar salads more or less together for work. DD goes to daycare so we didn't have to do lunch for her.

We slowly, and without a plan, added new and healthier dinners to the rotation. Mostly we eat simple stuff. And last year we decided to be mostly vegetarians at home.

I refuse to make any different foods for LO. But she's a pretty good eater so it's not usually an issue. I'm not too strict about snacks. I'm not terribly consistent about that. Generally I try to push fruit.

Biggest hurdle is time. Time to chop so many veggies. And on bad days it's hard to not just get McDonald's.

@JennyPenny: I ordered this on a whim seeing your recommendation (I make the Korean Beef Bowls all the time and realized it was the same lady), it came today, and I LOVE it! Every recipe looks delicious! I'm going to make every dinner next week out of it, thanks!

We've been slowly working on this and still have a long way to go. However, our transition was more forced than anything - LO had a ton of allergies (milk, gluten, egg) when she started weaning and I had to make everything from scratch. That exeprience really reinforced my desire to stay away from processed food.

1) Did you make the change yourself first and then implement to the family?

I enjoy cooking and prepared our meals prior to LO, but her allergies really took it to a whole new level.

2) When faced with resistance from kids - how did you overcome? (i.e. "treat" meals for the things they love but you dont want to be staples in their diets).

Our situation was a little unusual because her allergies meant she couldn't have processed snacks. Now that she's outgrown her allergies, she's had junk food, but we normally don't stock it enough for her to ever ask - except for ice cream, but she knows she can't have it every day.

3) What has been the biggest hurdle?

Time. Most definitely time.

4) How do you explain to kids healthy vs not healthy?

She knows the difference between real food and dessert - that real food lets her grow big and strong and too much snacks and desserts will give her a tummy ache.

We made a huge switch to (almost) no processed foods about 6 months ago. I enjoy making breads, pastas, etc. from scratch... it I can totally see how that's too much for most.
We found the most success with two changes:
1). We don't bring any "unhealthy" or processed food into the house. No crackers, ice cream, pretzels, etc. If we want a cookie, we bake it from scratch. I found that if it's not in the house, we don't miss it.
2). Plan!! If we get home from work at 6:00 and have yet to make a plan for dinner/shop, take-out is just too tempting. We usually discuss in the morning what we are in the mood for and then take turns going to the store after work.

That being said, I think knowing that you can enjoy foods without worrying about it all the time is important. When we do go out to dinner, I just order what looks good! Splurging keeps me from getting bored