Image by healingdream /FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I was never more food-conscious than I am now that I’m a mom. Before I had kids, food was always an afterthought. I could cook up something grand when I wanted to, but I could also eat a granola bar and call it good. A baked potato with melted cheese seemed like a feast.
Now with five mouths to feed, food is front-and-center almost constantly. At any given point in the day, it seems like at least one of the five of us is wanting a snack or a meal, to have tummy or palate satisfied. Foods can influence moods and become the building blocks of a person’s overall health.
Dinner is the one meal over which we probably have the most control, and there was a great article on this site explaining a systematic approach to planning these. But how do you plan for all of the eating that happens the rest of the day? And, moms, how do you gauge your own appetites, when the fridge and pantry are often just a few steps away?
How do you make healthful eating manageable for you and your family?
This is a hard one and sometimes it takes sheer discipline not to eat 20 cookies when we whip up a batch. Something that helps me between meals is to make up a vegetable tray for myself. Much of the food will last up to a week in a refridgerator so I snack on it for days before needing to wash and cut another batch. I enjoy healthy food and this makes it more convenient. My husband also grabs a bag full sometimes on his way to work and the kids snack on it (mostly just the carrots) too. This makes the random piece of candy in the pantry much easier to resist.
I get a basket of produce every two weeks (for really cheap!) from Bountiful Baskets. And because pesticides contribute towards ADD/ADHD, I wash ALL OF IT in Sunrider’s SunSmile Fruit and Vegetable Rinse so that we don’t just think we’re eating healthy, but we really are!
I use brown rice instead of white, and whole wheat bread instead of white.
I often use sucanot, honey, or Sunrider’s SunnyDew or Sunectar (both from Stevia plants) as sweeteners instead of white or brown sugar.
We often have fruit/nut smoothies that we add Sunrider’s NuPlus or VitaShake to make it a complete meal.
We use ground turkey instead of beef. We never eat pork since pigs don’t sweat and hold all their toxins inside (and since there are some larvae that don’t die from heat… cooking it doesn’t even help!).
We drink soy, almond, or rice milk instead of cow’s milk and our 14-month-old drinks fresh goat milk instead of cow’s milk or formula.
We don’t buy things that contain Corn Syrup or High Fructose Corn Syrup or MSG (which means our BBQ sauce, ketchup, etc are organic).
We eat and drink Sunrider foods and beverages daily! I love eating “healthfully”!
When we go shopping for food, whole grains and raw fruits and veggies are our family’s mainstay. The kids can be picky though so we make high fiber, “swamp scum smoothies” in hopes of encouraging good nutrition as they grow. Basically the smoothies are made of ice, frozen fruit (such as strawberries and bananas), with lots of psyllium seed fiber and spirulina mixed in. Tonight, for example, my two youngest sneered at their zucchini, so I whipped up some smoothies(muhahaha).
When I’m not in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy (like I am now), it’s easier to insist things like a complete tray of vegetables is consumed before the rest of lunch or dinner is served. So, I’m quite grateful for the smoothies right now. Not only that that the kids will drink them, but Japan in the summer time is HOT and HUMID and I don’t know what I’d do without them either!
I have really loved using a company called Nature’s Garden Delivered. It is an organic food delivery. They have different sized baskets to choose from including all fruit or all vegetable baskets. Each Saturday I am sent an email telling me what will be in my basket/box. I can exchange any items in the basket for produce with a similar value. If I don’t want beets one week, I can exchange it for extra bananas. I love it! It is delivered early in the morning on Thursdays in a box that is neatly put together with an ice pack stuck in there to keep it cool. I have never recieved any questionable produce and I love that my family is eating pretty much what is in season. Instead of sending my kids to the cabinet for Cheezits and Goldfish, I can have them eat some fruit first.