We are on the road heading towards our vacation spot for a week. Thought we’d share with you what snacks we took with us for the road.
We chose these raw veggies because they are easy and not messy. The ranch makes them yummy and it’s a nice treat although orly (my 3 yr old prefers them without the ranch)
We also brought a fruit bowl and water in our cooler. We also put some cheese sticks for the boys. It keeps us satisfied while we’re in the car and beats stopping at a fast food place.
By Caroline:
We all know that at the end of a long week sometimes we just want comfort food. And we definitely want to treat ourselves to something delicious… But at the same time we’re afraid of totally going off the rails. So we thought about the concept of fearless Fridays. Giving you a recipe from time to time thats a healthier alternative to comfort food. It doesn’t have to be the healthiest meal in the world, but we are striving to make better choices. So here’s our first attempt at a healthier weekend meal. It takes some time to make so it’s perfect for Fridays or Saturdays with friends.
By Orlando:
Eggplant lasagna.
It was as good a lasagna as any I’ve ever had. I know it is hard to believe, but I swear it’s true. In place of pasta sheets, we use eggplant sliced in 1/4 inch slices length-wise. A mandolin is ideal in order to get even slices, but you can eye-ball it with a knife. This is a take on a recipe I found online.
The meat in the lasagna is ground turkey and chicken. You can use one or both, but I wanted the depth of flavor that the combination would provide. You can use turkey or chicken sausage as well if you want. A quick note on ground turkey: always check the fat % on the package. Turkey that is 85/15 (15% fat) is as bad as eating ground beef. A 99% or “fat-free” turkey is ideal, but it is super dry. I usually use a 93/7 blend which is still healthy and reasonable.
This is NOT one of our weekly go-to dishes mainly because I use a good deal of cheese (even though they are all fat-free or 2% milk cheese). Also, it is not as packed with vegetables as I normally like. But the true genius of this dish is that you don’t use any spaghetti sauce. The sauce is comprised of all ground turkey/chicken and a combination of red wine, tomato paste, and a small can of Rottela. In other words, you are saving the 100-plus grams of sugar contained on Prego or Ragu. Add to that the absence of any pasta, and you have a relatively healthy, very low-carb lasagna that you can make as a “weekend cheat” dish. As I always do, I will eventually find a way to add a lot of veggies to this dish and make it even healthier, but I didn’t want to go crazy on my first attempt and risk watering-down the lasagna. One of the keys to a good lasagna is that it can stand on its own after plating. This lasagna did so in large part because it was not overly-sauced, but it still had an awesome saucy taste inside of the ground meats.
Lots of people have asked me what are the staples we have in our home and what we do for meal planning. I have to confess…my situation might be a little different from most other people because my husband likes to cook dinner and therefore he goes to the grocery store every evening to choose what he’s going to make for dinner. Yes, Orlando goes to the grocery store almost every single day. THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE TO DO THIS!!!!! This has it’s benefits because we tend to eat fresh foods instead of frozen foods, and because I can always have Orlando pick up something we need, but this doesn’t work for everyone…I, for example, would NOT go to a grocery store every day!
This being said…we do have staples in our home, and as time has gone by, we have started planning our meals much more than we used to in the past. Plus, the daily grocery visits only have to do with dinner. We buy at BJ’s, Costco, or any other grocery store for the week food for our breakfasts, lunches, and snacks.
STAPLES FOR YOUR KITCHEN
SPICES- One of the things Dr. Sanchez has told me is the importance of consuming different spices. Spices and herbs are supposed to have incredible healing powers and its really so easy to add them to your meals while cooking.
TURMERIC, CORIANDER, & CUMIN: These spices are relatively new to our diet. I had never even heard of Turmeric until I met an Indian nurse who told me about it. I had always heard that Indian food was medicinal. This nurse told me that Indians season their meats in the United States with Turmeric to kill the pesticides. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I researched the benefits of Turmeric and found tons of literature. We incorporate spices such as Turmeric and coriander to most of our meals now, including our soups, our chicken, and anywhere else we can sneak it in. And we ALWAYS have it at the house ready to use. You can google the health benefits of any of these spices and take a look for yourself. Here are some articles I found interesting.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/turmeric-health-have-a-happy-new-year_b_798328.html
http://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/herbs-and-spices/health-benefits-of-coriander.html
http://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/seed-and-nut/health-benefits-of-cumin.html
Ginger -I love having these 2 staples in our home because they add a delicious taste and are also so good for you. Ginger is supposed to help with headaches, swelling, digestion, common colds, etc. I put a little ginger in our smoothies in the morning. I don’t juice very often but I LOVE juicing carrots, ginger, and oranges. IT is delicious!!!!
CAVEAT: A little ginger goes a LONG way. I tend to buy a small root so it doesn’t go to waste. You only need put a little bit like half an inch when you’re incorporating it into your meals or smoothies. Otherwise it will overpower your meal and you will hate it! So make sure you err on the side of caution and start very small. Then you can add more and see what your palette and your family’s can tolerate.
Fresh Garlic – we love to roast our Garlic. It squeezes out like butter and has a sweetness to it. Its absolutely delicious in recipes. We used it when we tried our red beet soup and started incorporating it into other meals. We also chop up the raw garlic and use it as a base for soups, stir fries, chicken, etc.
The more herbs and spices you can cook with, the better. We are just giving you some we always have at the house.
FRUITS AND VEGGIES- In this department we go crazy because most of our daily diet consists of fruits and Vegetables. Since we order from a coop, Annie’s Buying Club, we get a box of fruits and vegetables every 2 weeks that forces us to cook vegetables that we’re not really familiar with. Our cabbage soup, which is now a weekly meal in our home, came from getting a head of cabbage in this box that we didn’t know what to do with. We’ve also discovered other jewels like eggplant lasagna, and beet soup.
But the weeks we don’t have that box, we stick to a few basics that we know we love.
FRUITS-
VEGETABLES-
AGAIN, we don’t necessarily have all these at the house at the exact same time. The food we eat is perishable and therefore we buy with caution. We don’t buy more than we know we can consume. The week we get our box we eat the veggies in the box and sometimes buy some additional veggies if a recipe calls for it. The week we don’t have our box we usually make cabbage soup one night a week (recipe in prior post) which requires a lot of veggies, asparagus and leeks (a combination we love) once a week. Steamed broccoli once a week. Sweet potato once a week (this serves as our carb and we have another green vegetable on the plate like green beans, broccoli, asparagus, etc.)
We also like to make a vegetable stir fry once a week where we add a ton of veggies and no animal protein (recipe to follow in another post).
Raw veggies and Leftovers – I tend to use as much of our veggies as I can in our daily salads. I usually break a couple of pieces of broccoli from and toss in the salads. I use a peeler to peel the carrots. Instead of baby carrots or pre-cut carrots, I like the thin strips of carrots that I get with the peeler in our salads. I switch up the greens from Organic Girl. They have a super greens box which I like a lot. other times I get the 50/50 mix and sometimes I get just Spinach. They’re all good and I try different ones simply for variety. If I have leftover stir fry from the evening before or red beets that we roasted, I pack it up in a separate container. Then at lunch time I heat it up and sprinkle on top of my salad. I like adding hot food to my salads once in a while and the veggies are a nice mix.
FOR MY SMOOTHIES- I always have kale, collard greens, or watercress for my smoothies. I love adding other ingredients which I will discuss in other posts but I have those as staples. When I run out of these, I can always grab some greens from my organic girl box and use that instead.
MEAT AND FISH-
I find organic chicken at Costco. I usually buy dark meat for the boys because it is softer and easier to eat. And I buy boneless chicken breast for us.
I buy wild salmon at Whole foods. I wait for the sale, sometimes they have it at $9.99 per pound and they’ve even gone as low as $7.99. When they have this sale, I buy tons of it. and store it in my freezer. Then I leave it out to defrost and eat it for dinner once a week.
We usually eat chicken, salmon, and turkey picadillo each once a week and the other nights eat soup or stir fry and try to go without animal protein or fish. But from time to time, Orlando goes to Captain’s tavern (a fish market by our home) and buys a nice sea bass, or shrimp for us. And once in a while we have a new york strip. We have red meat maybe once a month and its usually on a Friday as a treat for us.
NUTS AND SEEDS-
Nuts and seeds are a great snack because they are portable. Its probably one of the only things we have that we can put in a ziplock baggie and take with us anywhere, or keep at our desks.
I always have nuts in my bag in case i’m starving and i’m driving home or at my desk and ran out of food. I don’t spend all day snacking on nuts by any means, but I do probably eat them once a day.
I try to incorporate these into our salads as well as for snacks. I usually put walnuts, sliced almonds, and pecans in our salads. Sometimes I put the sunflower seeds in our salads also. I love adding crunch to our salads!
Dairy-
I personally don’t eat yogurt. Its a texture issue for me. But my kids love it so I give them a yogurt every day. Orly drinks one cup of cow’s milk in the morning usually and I have one cup of the milk to make my cafe con leche. That’s it for our milk consumption. Justin doesn’t drink cow’s milk because he’s allergic to it so I give him almond milk, goat’s milk, or rice milk.
I use almond milk with my oatmeal.
I always have eggs in our house because I make hard boiled eggs in batches. Then I put them in our salads, with avocados (Recipe in prior post) or by themselves.
Grains and Beans – Grains and beans are really the only items we buy that have a longer shelf life and don’t have to be consumed within the week. I go to whole foods and buy grains and beans such as
I keep these in containers at the house. Then we have them in case we need them. Sometimes I make a batch of quinoa and use it for dinner one night,and for lunch for the boys the next day, etc. I do the same thing with all the other grains. We do not eat grains every day. We make lentil soup once every week or two weeks. And we always make enough to have leftovers.
I love making steel cut oats and storing it for breakfast for the boys. I sweeten it up with some vanilla extract and cinnamon.
CAVEAT: Sometimes we need to be practical. As much as I love steel cut oats, I always keep the little microwaveable oatmeal packets at my office or at home. I love these little packets because again they are portable and if I’m in a pinch in the office, I make myself a little oatmeal packet. And of course sometimes my kids want oatmeal in the mornings and I don’t have any more of my steel cut oats batch so I make them a quick packet with almond milk.
My motto is I try my best to eat as healthy as possible, but we have to always be prepared for when we are in a rush and eat as best we can in those situations also.
Other staples-
We try to cook with coconut oil as frequently as possible to avoid altering the olive oil properties. I use olive oil for salads and to drizzle on other foods.
I think this is a pretty comprehensive list of the items we keep in our home. We use to have things like wheat crackers and deli meats, and slices of processed cheese. We have eliminated those foods from our diet. But as I’ve said before, we buy what we eat. We don’t typically have food sitting in our shelves, fridge or freezer for long periods of time. Sometimes I buy something different like Mint. And then I spend the whole week making different recipes with mint. I will post about all those things along the way, but at least this is a good starting guide for what to look for in your grocery stores.
Please let me know via comments or email if you have questions, suggestions, or if this is a helpful list for you.
HAPPY SHOPPING!!!!
Most people’s weakness is dessert. They can do well most of the day…eat healthy, avoid temptation…but its when that cake comes out at work to celebrate someone’s birthday or that delicious dessert menu pops up after dinner… it is so hard to resist!!!!
Especially if you’ve been avoiding sugar all week and are suffering from withdrawals. We all need a sugar fix once in a while.
I am not tempted by all sweets. You can offer me cheesecake or flan or a key lime pie and I will pass without suffering. But I did have a weakness, like we all do. Chocolate chip cookies and Nutella. I could literally eat 10 chocolate chips in a row or a bowl of Nutella and be happy. Not to mention the raw chocolate chip cookie dough without the chips. When I started this journey, I felt sad to think I was giving up these yummies. No more half baked Ben and Jerry’s ice cream on Friday nights. 🙁
Well, my doctor told me that chocolate is actually GOOD for you! What a concept! Something that is so delicious is good for me? Well it is, but there’s a catch…what’s bad isn’t the chocolate…its all the milk and sugar and corn syrup and extra stuff they add to it to make it sweet. You see raw chocolate is actually quite bitter. So my doctor suggested that I try dark chocolate. Anything over 72% cacao. I went to Walgreens and bought myself a Ghirardelli’s 72% chocolate bar. Brought it home and gave a square to Orlando and one for myself. We sat there in silence with this bitter piece of chocolate on our tongues…and the craziest thing happened!!!! When you let it sit on your tongue, instead of chewing it up and swallowing right away, the flavors of the chocolate start coming alive! After a couple of minutes we actually started enjoying it. I decided I would allow myself anywhere from 1 to 3 little squares per evening to satisfy my sweet tooth.
AND THERE BEGAN OUR DARK CHOCOLATE OBSESSION!
We started experimenting with darker chocolates and after trying several different ones have grown to love 85% Dark Chocolate. Our favorite brand is called GREEN AND BLACK ORGANIC 85% CHOCOLATE. We also like the Ghirardelli 85%. We treat ourselves every evening for dinner. The truth is that we’ve grown to love it so much that now if we taste milk chocolate, its actually too sweet for us. At least in my case, it has eliminated my desire for other sweets. I’ve even gone as far as taking a bar in my purse when I’m going out to dinner or to a family event…so when dessert comes out I can have my piece of chocolate. I don’t do this to be psycho! I do it because in the situations I haven’t done it and I’ve eaten the cupcake or other sweet, my stomach aches a little and I regret it soon after.
Of course these chocolates still contain sugar. In the organic one they put the evaporated cane juice…but it is sugar. But life is about BALANCE. And it is much better to have 15% of sugar added than 60-70%. And the cacao has great benefits for your body…and at least in my case…chocolate makes me happy! So I think its a great option. Since we eat it every night, we really don’t feel like we are depriving ourselves from the sweet stuff. And at the very beginning, it really got me through the drastic change my body underwent in eliminating so much sugar from my daily diet.
This, of course, doesn’t mean that one day you can’t have cake at a party, or treat yourself to a key lime pie. We all need moderation. But I think if you give the dark chocolate a try, it might reduce the anxieties that come from craving something sweet and help you avoid the bad stuff much more often.
If any of you have already begun this dark chocolate transition, please comment and let us know what your experience has been.
Have a sweet day!
I get so excited when I get a recipe from a fellow healthy eater and it’s delicious. This weekend a good friend of ours suggested we try the following for breakfast.
Hard boiled eggs
Avocado
Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.
Just Mash it all together and serve for breakfast.
Can I tell you that I tried it this morning and I was blown away!
It was totally delicious and so easy to make. The only thing I had to do was boil the eggs which took about 15 minutes. Then I cut open the avocado, put the olive oil and salt and mixed it together.
The ratio I used was 2 eggs and 1/2 an avocado because that’s what I happened to have available.
It was also a nice variation from my regular morning smoothies. I’ll confess I felt a little guilty not getting all my fruits and veggies in the morning but I know I replaced them with good protein and fats which are also essential.
For those who are in a rush in the mornings:
Hard boiled eggs are quite easy because they can be cooked in batches. On any given night hard boil about 5-10 eggs (depending on your family size) and put them back in the egg carton. We get a marker and just write on the shell HB. The shell comes off and it’s how we differentiate them from the non cooked eggs. You can also tell by shaking the egg. Then in the morning you can peel and combine with the avocado. You can also take the boiled egg and avocado with you and make at work for snack or lunch… So it can be portable also.
I highly recommend you try this recipe. And it really doesn’t have to be limited to a breakfast food. I would have this for a snack in the middle of the day also.
I’m in love!!!!!!
I did a quick search on the benefits of these 2 foods and I found this informative short paragraph on both foods. Read below…
Eggs are one of our best sources of high-quality complete protein, which is easily absorbed and has all of the amino acids the body needs. Eggs are also high in choline, a phospholipid compound similar to B-vitamins that many cells in the body utilize. Choline plays a large role in gene expression, and may prevent long-term memory loss., Choline is also essential in the formation of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that sends messages between nerves and muscles. With more than 90% of Americans choline-deficient, incorporating eggs into your diet is an easy fix. Just be sure to use the egg yolk when making your morning scramble – since this is where all of the choline and vitamins are stored.
We’ve come to think of orange foods as the best source of carotenoids (carotenoids might make you think carrots, right?). But dark green vegetables actually get their trademark deep green color from a mixture of the green pigment chlorophyll with the orange-pigmented carotenoids.Avocados boast incredibly high carotenoid levels, which have potent anti-inflammatory properties. What does anti-inflammatory really mean for us? Inflammation is the body’s protective response to toxins, pollutants, and other harmful invaders. Inflammation can decrease short-term cell function and over time causes permanent damage. Nutritious foods with anti-inflammatory properties help us minimize those damaging effects. You already know that avocados are a great source of heart-healthy fats, and that just adds to their superfood status: avocados have a truly unique mixture of fat-soluble vitamins, antioxidant plant pigments, and antioxidants, which have been linked to decreased risk for cancer.
What is it about veggies that most of us just don’t want to eat them? I say its bad memories. Its the memory of the soggy broccoli you had at a restaurant or the canned vegetables your mother made you eat for dinner. The truth is that most people sabotage vegetables. Its not the vegetable…its the preparation. Boiling and over steaming are probably the biggest culprits.
But when you decide that you have to make vegetables the biggest part of your daily diet…you better find a way to enjoy them or you’re in big trouble. We have definitely found a cooking method that works:
ROASTING
The recipe we are about to share with you is the most basic, embarrassingly simple way to cook almost any vegetable and LOVE it.
Here’s what you do:
Take Asparagus for example:
THAT’S IT.
Other veggies you can try this method with include:
This cooking method has allowed us to start this love affair with vegetables. Caveat: We don’t like using this method on broccoli because we find it to be too dry. We will post another recipe for broccoli, but we encourage you to try any and all of these veggies using this simple recipe.
What’s so great about this recipe is that you don’t need fancy ingredients or techniques and you don’t have to be a great cook to pull this off. Even I can cook this and I rely entirely on my husband to do the cooking.
We usually use this method at dinner time and we tend to make a large portion. We love leftovers because our kids go to sleep so early that they won’t enjoy this veggie until the next day. We also sometimes double up on the veggies…for example we’ll make roasted butternut squash and green beans and use the squash as the carb.
But another great little perk is that I incorporate the leftovers in my meals the next day.
For example: My absolute favorite is to have the roasted butternut squash in my fridge for a few days to put in my salads. It is DELICIOUS! I also snack on it if I’m hungry and I need a snack. I just heat it up and eat a few bites and its filling and healthy.
If we have left over red beets I also put it in our salads the next day, but sometimes I make a beet smoothie in the morning.
We try to make our morning and afternoon vegetables RAW because that is the way you get the most vitamins and minerals from the vegetable. But it is nice to throw in a cooked vegetable into your salad every once in a while and keep it interesting.
We hope you’ll put this recipe to the test this week and try as many vegetables as you dare!!!
GOOD LUCK AND REMEMBER…PILE ON THE GREENS!!!
This morning I made the family a green smoothie.
Here’s what I put:
Celery
Kale
Romaine lettuce
Apple
Banana
Honey
Water
I made this smoothie because Justin had a fever last night and I’m not sure if he’s teething or coming down with a cold. I thought the honey would be good for him.
I will confess it wasn’t his favorite. But he drank most of it and then I gave him a few craisins which he loves. I’m constantly trying new ingredients in my smoothies knowing that it may be hit or miss. But this is the only way to find the ones we absolutely love. It’s a process!!!!
Orly loved it though which shows that it’s really important to get the kids to try everything. It’s not a guarantee they’ll like it and each child is different but exposure plants the seed which is all we can do!
We all look forward to the weekend so we can relax, sleep in (if we don’t have children!), and do whatever we want to do. But if you’re new to eating healthy, you might be a little afraid of the weekend because with the routine goes the packed lunches, the planned dinners, and the smoothies for breakfast. We used to feel the same way. We didn’t want to eat completely unhealthy but we also didn’t want to feel like we were on a diet and couldn’t eat a pizza if we wanted to. So we do a little bit of both.
One of our favorite weekend things to do used to be going to Chili’s for lunch. Lunch is good for us because our kids are little and we like to put them to bed early. Then we looked up the nutrition guide online for Chili’s and that was the end of that. The queso dip, which was my favorite, is scary bad for you!!!!!! So we stopped doing that, and that kind of sucked.
But then we found an alternative. There is a new little place we found that we love:
Categories: Vegetarian, Juice Bars & Smoothies, Gluten-Free
9818 SW 77 Ave(305) 279-1955
This place is tiny and doesn’t have a lot of options. But its owned by a young, married couple with their 6 kids and we like them a lot. The food they have is good. My favorite smoothies they have are The Crazy Monkey (I ask for NO agave) and The Hulk.
They also add their daily menu on Facebook so you can see what they have on Saturday and choose whether to go there or not. Unfortunately they are closed on Sundays.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Green-Shack-Juice-Bar/224242410971869
For the rest of the weekend, our suggestion is try to pay attention to your choices. If you go out to dinner and eat pasta maybe try to avoid the bread. Or add more veggies to your meal than you normally did. Instead of having a mixed drink with tons of sugar in it…have a glass of wine instead. Or if you go to a cuban restaurant, try to avoid the rice. We have grown to love black beans as a soup instead of on top of rice. Orlando can confess he thought that would never be possible and yet he loves it now!
If you’re having dinner at home with friends, experiment with a cool new meal like the cauliflower pizza. http://www.recipegirl.com/2012/01/16/cauliflower-crust-hawaiian-pizza
And don’t forget to carve out a little time this weekend to plan your meals for next week. Maybe even visit a local farmer’s market and check out some interesting vegetables or fruits that you can try.
Have a great weekend!!!
BY ORLANDO:
One of our staple recipes in our home has become CABBAGE SOUP. We receive “shares” of different organic veggies and fruits every week. One week’s share had a head of cabbage in it, and I had no idea what to do with it. For a week I would look at it in the refridgerator with both fear and contempt. Caro suggested I make a soup out of it, so I looked up some recipies. I found a Weight Watcher’s recipe that got extremely high ratings. I read the reviews and took suggestions from others who have already made the soup (as you should do any time you follow a recipe). I added the red beans, which I think really round-out the soup. I also added the asparagus and the Rotele sauce in place of tomato paste. Feel free to add or subtract any vegetable you want. The soup is amazing. You can eat all you want because it is nothing but healthy, delicious goodness. I make this once a week and have leftovers for Caro, the boys, and myself throughout the week.
One quick storage note: You may want to seperate the broth from the veggies when storing because the veggies soak-in the broth and leave you with very little broth for leftovers. I considered adding more broth to the recipe, but with all of the ingredients already in the recipe, my pot would over-flow.
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DIRECTIONS
1. Cook olive oil, leaks, onions, jalapeño, carrots, and garlic in soup pot for 5 minutes at med-high heat. Add a sprinkle of salt at some point while stirring.
2. Add cabbage, squash, zucchini, green beans, and red beans. Add salt, pepper, basil, and oregano and stir at med-high until veggies cook down a bit (like 5 minutes). Optional: You can also add asparagus, mushrooms, spinach…read below
3. Add Rottele sauce and stir for 3-4 more minutes.
4. Add the beef and vegetable broth and bring to a boil.
5. Lower to a simmer for 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper if it needs it.
BY CAROLINE:
NOTE: This soup is the perfect example of two of the principles we follow:
1. TRY NEW FOODS: We had never had cabbage before, nor thought of buying it in the first place. But we are members of a coop that allows us to purchase organic fruits and vegetables at a better price straight from the farmers. The catch with this coop is that you get what you get. You don’t get to choose. So when our box brought a huge head of cabbage, we had no idea what to do with it. We put it off for about a week and then I told Orlando, we need to make this cabbage before it goes to waste. He looked up recipes with Cabbage and decided to try to the Cabbage Soup. Had it not been because we were FORCED into working with this vegetable, we would have never discovered this soup which we LOVE! Not only is it delicious but it is so hearty that it allows us to skip an animal protein on the nights we eat it. And we can have seconds without guilt because it is literally like drinking a bowl of medicine. Nothing but good healthy ingredients!
2. PILE ON THE GREENS: Orlando has taken this concept quite seriously and this is a perfect opportunity to apply this principle. Not only does Orlando put the veggies in the recipe…every time he makes it he adds something new. Now he makes the soup with SPINACH, MUSHROOMS, ASPARAGUS. He even tried SWEET POTATO last time although that wasn’t my favorite. The point is that you can add anything you want. If there is a veggie that you’re unlikely to try on its own or is not your favorite, just hide it in the soup. The more veggies, the better.
And yes…our kids eat this soup also!!! We make a huge pot of it and we have it in the fridge for several days. I serve it as lunch for us a couple of days later and I give it to the kids for dinner the following day. I play with it with the kids, for example: one day I’ll give it to Justin (my 1 1/2 year old) as soup, but the next day I’ll get his portion and blend it in the blender and make a puree to change the consistency for him. Another day I’ll make it on a bed of quinoa pasta or germinated brown rice, or I’ll make them a sweet potato and combine the two to make it a bit sweeter. I always try to keep it interesting for them. With my 3 year old, I make him guess what veggies are in there and we spend the whole meal talking about them. I’ve noticed the more I talk to him about the veggies, the more open he is to trying them.
WE HOPE YOU CAN MAKE THIS SOUP A STAPLE IN YOUR HOME ALSO!
As with everything in life, there is a major concern with eating healthy…how much it costs! Everyone knows it is more expensive to eat healthy than not. Shopping at places like Whole Foods or Fresh Market can really hurt your wallet and some people simply can not afford it…. or can they?
I have definitely increased my grocery expenses in the past year. I am in no better or worse position than the average middle class family to incur this added expense. So how is it that I CAN afford it and others can’t? My argument is about priorities.
Everyone complains about not having enough money. Some can’t afford to live in a big house. Others can’t afford to own an expensive car, or send their kids to private school, or travel, or buy expensive clothing and purses. And for each person that complains about not affording something, that person has an expense the other can’t afford. The mom who can’t afford to drive a nice car, but her daughter goes to an expensive private school. The couple who can’t afford to own their own home, but travel to exotic places.
My point is that we are all spending money. It is a matter of choices and priorities what you spend your money on. Some spend in on True Religion jeans, others spend it on dining out at the latest “IN” club or restaurant, some spend it on golf, others spend it on cigarrettes. We all make these choices.
So what about food? I tend to think that there is a perception about food that it should not be expensive because it is a basic necessity and not a luxury. Not everyone needs a GUCCI purse, but everyone needs to eat. Its the same reason we all complain about Gas prices. Why are these basic needs bleeding our wallets to death?
My view on this is that food is no longer treated as a basic need. We have such an oversupply of all food products that what we eat has become a luxury. Groceries are stocked to their capacity. We have so many choices, and we constantly abuse this privilege and over consume food which leads to the problems we are facing with our weight and health. So in order to please the masses, greedy companies choose to use the cheapest ingredients they can find (i.e., corn syrup) to make the biggest possible profit on the quantities of food they sell. AND WE ALL BUY INTO IT.
We buy into the convenience, the pre packaging, the perceived value (look I can get 2 boxes of Lucky Charms for the price of one!) But there is a price to eating this stuff that we don’t necessarily calculate in our monthly budget. For example, the price of weight loss products that we are constantly buying to try to lose weight; the price of the medicine we use to treat the conditions that our bad diet causes (high cholesterol, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, etc.), the price of wasted food…how many of us buy tons of soda because we got such a good deal on it, and a couple of weeks later realize the soda is completely flat and has to be tossed. Or the bread is moldy, or the chips are stale. We buy cheap food and therefore we don’t care that much about it, so if we go out to eat all weekend and on Monday have to throw spoiled food away, we don’t pay much attention.
I have adopted a different strategy towards the food I eat. My husband and I buy expensive food. Organic fruits and vegetables, nuts, whole grains, expensive meats… all pricey. HOWEVER, in my house, we eat what we buy. We do not throw away spoiled food because quite frankly we can’t afford to! If I cut up a few slices of an organic apple for my salad, and I have the other half of the apple remaining, I toss it into my smoothie instead of putting it into the refrigerator to turn brown and find it a week later. We eat out less. We typically don’t go out to eat for lunch, and we don’t order food during the week because we make enough food to always have left overs. I hope to be able to say that in the future, our biggest savings will come from our medical bills….Of course, that remains to be seen!
Part of the biggest problem with healthy food is the vicious cycle we’re in. Healthy food is expensive so we don’t buy it, but since we don’t buy it continues to be expensive. What if all we bought was the expensive stuff and the grocery stores were left with all the junk food? They would definitely start ordering less of it and more of the good stuff. And the more good stuff they get, the cheaper it gets. So what if we all bought what we needed. Meat, fruits, vegetables, dairy, nuts, and grains? But we left on the shelves the unnecessary stuff. The chips, the sodas, the frozen food, the cereal boxes…what if we eliminated the crap.
In the meantime, I try to SAVE by:
We have decided that even if we have to sacrifice in other areas of our life, we will not sacrifice what we put in our bodies or our children’s. Food is fuel and we want to put the best fuel in us as we can so we can run a long healthy life! So the next time you think you can’t afford healthy food, just remember priorities.
What are your priorities????