Are You Making the Right Choices? Part 2

So you read part 1 and are now inspired, right? But where in the world do you begin? Since I have already traveled down this road, I can tell you what NOT to do! Do NOT cut everything out all at once from your family's diet - resentment in the food arena is not the way to bring peace to the family!

Naturally, the first step is to educate yourself with as much information as your brain can handle. If you had to choose just one book to read, it would be Maximum Energy by Ted Broer. Written in layman's terms, it is an easy read with a list at the back of the book of the top 10 foods never to eat.

Now, begin to make a list of the foods that you don't ever want to see on your grocery list again. Pray together with your spouse and decide which ones to start with. If your buying/eating habits are in the gutter like ours was, then just tackle a couple at a time. Every few weeks, begin deleting another food item until you have met your goal of 'foods never to buy.'For example, stop buying all juices and pop the first week and drink only water and homemade tea sweetened with honey. Then re-train yourself to only buy fresh or frozen vegetables but not canned. Into the third or fourth week, try some baked chips/crackers and Kashi granola/breakfast bars for your snacks. Switch to unsweetened applesauce or with very little effort, make your own! Little by little switch over to whole grain pasta and whole wheat flour. Make some muffins or whole wheat blueberry pancakes (pictured) for breakfast or buy whole wheat bagels instead of boxed cereal. If that is too drastic, switch to Kashi cereals - my kids love Mighty Bites and Honey Sunshine. They have a wonderful website (www.kashi.com) that is laced with free samples and coupons that occupy my mailbox often!

After my first blog on this topic, I had some readers ask me about my grocery list and what foods line our shelves. I thought I would just give some bullets as to what we eat and don't eat with a little explanation:

1. We eat chicken, turkey, beef and venison. We do not eat pork of any kind. I happen to believe that it is the worst kind of meat available as well as the most fattening. Not only do I have a personal conviction against all pork, my husband and I used to have abdominal issues every time we would ingest sausage, bacon, ham and such. We eat a lot of venison since my husband and son are hunters. If I am needing a meal with ground meat, I will use 1/2 ground venison and 1/2 ground beef. I usually buy 1/4 of a steer of hormone/steroid-free Black Angus beef from different cattle ranchers 1-2 times a year. With an upright freezer in the garage, I have plenty of room for frozen foods.

2. When it comes to vegetables, fresh is best, then frozen and canned as a last resort. I always have canned vegetables in my pantry but only use as a last resort. I am now part of a bi-weekly vegetable/fruit produce co-op, so I hardly buy any veggies from the store. The co-op is vegetable heavy, so I still have to shop for extra fruit. Whenever I find fruit on sale, I usually buy a huge amount. After cleaning them, I cut them into small pieces and freeze them in quart size baggies. That way we can still enjoy the fruit year round. Frozen strawberries, grapes and bananas are great for smoothies! All my kids LOVE grapes, so I usually have 5-10 pounds of frozen grapes in the freezer at all times! You can catch grapes for .89/pound in the summer quite often - that's the time to grab several pounds to store for the winter!

3. We drink water for every meal though I will occasionally buy pop as a treat for my husband and 17 year old. I often make home made raspberry tea and sweetened it slightly with honey. It's delicious and helps to curb the sweet tooth that might be lingering!

4. Snacks are Goldfish, baked chips, Kashi crackers, Kashi breakfast bars, home made granola bars, fruit, raisins, unsweetened applesauce, smoothies made with fresh/frozen fruit and Brown Cow yogurt from the health food store. I usually sneak in some fresh carrot juice when the kids aren't looking! Sometimes I will buy Kashi or Back to Nature cookies since they are sweetened only with honey or brown rice syrup and evaporated cane juice. They are actually quite tasty! Of course, I have a mean recipe for Apple Oatmeal cookies made with honey, but in a pinch, these store bought cookies do the trick!

5. I have a bread machine, so I make most of our bread and rolls. If I do buy bread (like hamburger buns), I buy Nature's Own which has no artificial preservatives, colors or flavors and no trans fats or cholesterol.

6. I buy most of my dairy products from Braums, which is supposed to be hormone/steroid-free. Milk is an item that is a treat in our house. Not only is it the number one food to cause allergic reactions, but the amount of phlegm it produces in your body is amazing. It also contains sugar and is pasteurized, which lands it on the bad list. Other than everyone loving the taste, the nutritional value is at zero. So my kids are limited to milk only twice a month. If someone is sick or allergies are at an all-time high, then milk is the number one enemy.


7. Artificial sweeteners should never be on your grocery list if you want to remain disease-free. Splenda is the worst of them all. Just google "bad side affects of Splenda" and you'll find out how many different diseases and ailments it will bring to your body. Truvia, claiming to be made from the Stevia plant also has sugar alcohol in it - stay away from all of these. I use local honey and pure Stevia, which can only be purchased from a health food store. It is 700 times stronger than sugar so you use very little of it. If something calls for 1/4 cup of sugar, you use 1/4 teaspoon of Stevia. "The Stevia Story" will give you an incredible history on this plant. The downfall is that it doesn't have a rising agent in it and with no volume, you can't use it for things like a cake. I only bake for the holidays and when we have company over, so this isn't a big issue for me. If I can't use Stevia or honey, I use real sugar and just exercise extra the next day! Otherwise, I use honey for just about everything. I make a mean apple pie made with 1/4 cup of honey. I have made this often for company and they are always shocked when I tell them it was made with honey instead of almost 2 cups of white sugar!

The number one word I would like to stress here is moderation. Yes, we splurge and yes we eat sweets. But it's in moderation - not every day and not even every week. It brought joy to my ears just a few weeks ago when my 17 year old said, "No thanks, that's enough for me - this is way too sweet!" It's all a matter of training!

I hope this helps to bring some reality to the blog. I'll share some meal ideas on another entry. Remember, you need to do what is right for your family with the support of your spouse. God created us in His image and then asked us to take care of his 'temple'. Our goal in eating healthy is so that we can spend our time on earth happy, vibrant and full of energy. Lying in a hospital bed while on 13 different prescription meds is not my idea of 'living!'

Enjoy eating and enjoy your health!