Eating for Better Health

 

Our family has experienced some health concerns in the last few months which has led us to do some research about how to eat for better health.    Our eating adventure is just getting started and will evolve as diagnosis becomes more clear and as different foods show up seasonally.

There are so many ideas about what is "right." Even for treatment of a specific disease there are discrepancies in what makes the "best" diet to reduce symptoms and provide relief.

 

Now, I wouldn't say we had a completely unhealthy diet before.  We rarely ate "boxed" or packaged meals, we included some fruit and veggies at most meals, and tried to minimize food with high fructose corn syrup, and didn't eat a lot of processed foods.  Our diets were fairly high carb, red meat, and higher fat (cheeses in particular).  

 

Madelyn is quick to eat a variety of  fruits and vegetables. Callie will eat apples, applesauce and raw carrots.  Sometimes she will do a few banana bites. Outside of marinara sauce or ketchup, there are no cooked vegetables that she will touch.  We hope this changes as more fruits and vegetables are visible each meal.

 

Here are a few things we've learned (none of which are profound).

1. It is not enough to eliminate certain things (such as fats) from ones diet. It is essential to replace those calories with foods high in nutritional value.

 

2.  Our kids don't consume enough volume of food in one day to waste their caloric intake on "junk."  Every snack must include some kind of fruit or vegetable.  We allow one 8-10oz glass of juice (100%, no added sugar), each day.  For Callie, we are including raisins and dried cranberries for now, even though I don't like the added sugar.

 

3.  There is good fat and bad fat...Our diets need to eliminate bad fats and focus on good fats, such as is found in olive oil and nuts.

 

4.  In order to get the vitamin and mineral balance we need to include a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, not just our old basics.  We've added mangos, a lot more berries, brussel sprouts (if we must...), green salads (not iceberg lettuce) at lunch and dinner topped with other veggies like cucumber or peppers, red onion and we're working on cabbage.  We still keep our regulars around.

 

5.  We need to minimize sugars...okay we like sweets too much .We haven't changed much here :) Especially if I can put rhubarb or strawberries or dark chocolate in it!   Avoiding high fructose corn syrup and sucrose has been a priority though. 

 

6. I spend A LOT more time in the kitchen, particularly with my knife.  I try to cut containers of veggies 3 times a week so they are always accessible.   We make a fruit salad as necessary so it is available for every supper.   Here's what my groceries look like now for the week.

 

 

7.  We've added fish (I don't like fish, but I guess I'll learn) once a week. Rice and beans are going to become a staple to our menus.  We are still figuring out recipes to meet this need.

I've forgotten to take pictures of most of our new meals, but here's one of the more colorful of the last week. 

 I also attempted a vegetarian lasagna.  The girls weren't fans, BUT I was able to puree the extra sauce and then they enjoyed that sauce without the chunks of zucchini, squash, spinach, and onion.  Note to self...put more veggies in the pasta sauce :)

And good news...Callie has added grapes and an occasional strawberry (with the promise of chocolate) to her diet.
Although weight loss was not our motivator with this change of diet, Jason and I have also lost a cumulative of 10 pounds in the first two weeks of this life style change.