Moms, How to Feed Your Family and Live Life on Real Whole Food

kitchen disasterThe longer I do this the more I realize how ingrained NOT cooking/packing/shopping/planning has become in our culture; I think this is saying a lot because I come from a health and fitness world, where it seems like it should be a little more natural, or common.  I know I say this all the time, but Big Food’s done a great job through Big Advertising convincing us that effort on our end isn’t necessary;  the Family Meal from KFC, or the frozen meal from Marie Calendar’s has all our nutritional, emotional, and familial bases covered.  This just couldn’t be further from the truth.  All that processed, refined, pre-made food is killing us, literally.

Effort IS required if you want to be healthy, and you want your kids healthy.  Implementing that effort is only effort – until it becomes normal, then it’s not an effort anymore.  Honestly, I’ve got 4 kids myself, and I know how much busier life is when it’s not just your life that you’re managing, but several others.  It just takes a Planner, and a date with the Planner, to make this Real Whole Foods thing go smoother.

Here’s some ideas (there’s ways than this, this is just how I do it), sit down on Sunday (pick a time and stick to the time – does it need to be super early, before they get up, or super latethinking after bed time?) and get your planner and your calendar out side by side ( hopefully, you’ve written everyone’s schedules on the calendar), now, plan your days in detail: what time you need to leave the house, who has what appointment, consider drive-times and if you have real little ones, consider the extra time it takes to get them out of the house, or in the car.  Do you have days you aren’t home at all?  Do you have days you need to pack everyone lunch for the car ride, or dinner for after a late practice or consecutive practices?  Days you need to put a roast and vegetables in a crock pot early in the morning?  Could you spend 3 hours on the weekend, or one day during the week, Power Cooking (more on that further down)?  Consider all these factors when you think about your grocery list.  For instance, if you’ve got nights where you have back-to-back practices/clubs/meetings etc, think about what foods pack easily.  I’ve always said that while I HATE bread and grains, sometimes with kids, sandwiches are MUCH LESS evil than fast food.  Buy the best ingredients you can.  If your child has attention/stomach problems, pick Gluten Free breads (they have to be stored in the fridge) (remember that G-F means High Carb – they’re not a magic food, nor good for adults or sick kids).  There’s plenty of lunch meats now that have no nitrates, sugars, or fillers, and good cheese is easy to find.   There’s also nut butters, and low sugar jellies, or just nut butters and fruit, what kid doesn’t like apples or celery and nut butter?  Bags of homemade trailmix are good:  buy a mix of nuts, dried fruits,coconut chips,  and dark chocolate chips and mix in a big container, baggy up portions for the road.  Sometimes you’ll be doing this on your own, and sometimes, you can get them to help.

The best thing about packing?  It’s a trait that you’ll pass on to your kids – Honest.  You know that verse, “train a child in the way he should go, and he when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  ?  It’s actually true.  I’ve had the pleasure of seeing my older kids employ healthy habits that have NOTHING to do with me asking, nagging, or initiating.

When I decided about 6 years ago to have a NO JUNK food policy in the house (no pasta, no crackers, no boxes or bags of any kind), my kids were kind of older: high school, middle school, elementary school.  It was bad.  They were furious.  My husband was even mad.  And you all with teenagers know I’m not saying talking about a cute-furious, but a bad-furious.  It lasted for weeks, (“there’s no food in the house, just stuff you like to eat…”)  and then after a few months, the anger started to die down.  After 6 months, it was gone, and we had a new normal.   It was interesting, a few weeks ago one of my college girls had a friend over for the weekend.  The friend commented that our refrigerator and pantry were empty; my daughter replied that we had a TON of food, it’s just stuff you have to cook or make.  My heart melted:)

rachel and guyOh, what about that Power Cooking I mentioned earlier?  I started doing this years ago when Rachel Ray came out with that 5 Meals In a Day show – it’s brilliant!  I get a list together of dishes I want to eat for the week, and cook up the meats, chop up vegetables, and do a BUNCH of prep or actually cook up some of the casseroles, all in a few hours.  This makes a HUGE difference in life.  Some of the food I’d freeze to pull out later, and some things last perfectly for days in the fridge, as a matter of fact, anything with a sauce actually intensifies in flavor when it sits and develops.  Do any of you slow cook your meats?  Or boil and shred 10 or 11 chicken breasts?  Doing a big pan of meatballs is a time saver – make 30!  Bake a spaghetti squash and 8 potatoes in the oven at the same time, refrigerate them.  Chop a giant container of onions, zucchini’s and tomatoes, baggy and refrigerate. And don’t dismiss frozen vegetables:  green beans, peas, corn, broccoli – these things are quick frozen and taste great, especially with Real Butter, or Olive Oil, salt&pepper, or hard grated cheese on top.  Want your kids to like Brussel Sprouts?  Serve them with bacon, butter, and romano.  They’ll eat the whole pan.   Take a few hours to prep, and your whole week will be easier – and healthier.  I like to listen to podcasts or watch a tv show when I’m doing this, it helps pass the time.

My message?  Please don’t assume that because you’re busy, and/or have a bunch of kids, that Good Eating’s going to need to take a back seat.  Food is SO IMPORTANT.  If we’re eating crap, and feeding our kids crap, then health, energy, attention, mood, attitude – it all goeshow to cook old school downhill.  Moms, you can change that .  It was interesting, one of the talks at the Ancestral Health Symposium was on Who’s Paleo?  Biggest group:  mothers/women between 30 and 50.  Wow.  And who buys most of the groceries, packs the lunches, and makes the meals?  Those same women.  We Have The Power to Change The World.  Weight and Disease are SKYROCKETING.  We all know why and we can change that!  Be the one who teaches the next generation to cook, to plan, to pack; be the one who instills the belief that what we eat matters so much.  Your kids will be so much better off for it, right now, while they’re still young, and later, when they’re adults.

I’d love to hear about what you’re going through right now at your house.  Drop me an email if you get the time, but if time’s limited – spend it planning, shopping, chopping, and cooking!  Eat Real Whole Foods.

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