Real Food Journey #1

Especially up through when I was in elementary school, my parents did a way better than average job of feeding me good, healthy food. My mom made most (all?) of my baby food at home. Treats were limited to once a week (like a 3 Musketeers at the grocery store). They never offered me soft drinks, so when I first tasted one at 5, I hated it. They rarely offered juice, so I primarily drank milk and water. The other food was healthy too - tons of fruits and veggies (my dad had an amazing garden until we moved when I was 7), cereal couldn't have more than 6 grams of sugar, "wheat" bread (not 100% whole wheat, but not white cardboard either), a veggie steamer, and fast food nights were generally spaghetti with homemade-ish sauce (my mom would throw together a variety of canned tomatoes and make a sauce) or tuna salad. So overall, I would say I was introduced to more healthy food from an earlier age than many American children - there were no chips in the Cabinet, no Twinkies, etc. I'm not sure I've actually ever had a Twinkie...  I thought for the longest time that I really didn't like cheese because the place I was most exposed to it was when people offered me Cheez-its (ew). As I've gotten older, I've embraced other healthy choices as well, moving to 100% whole wheat bread and primarily 100% whole grain pasta, for example.

However, as I've been working to feed Little Miss S, it's made me rethink some of my ideas about "good" food. We made the decision to introduce solid foods through Baby-Led Weaning. Basically instead of purees, you introduce baby to a wide variety of real food from the age of 6 months on. One of the positive side effects is that you're supposed to end up with a better, more varied eater as your child gets older. Little Miss is a pretty good eater and does eat a wide variety of foods. If there is ever a Junior Little Miss (or Mister), I would definitely do the same thing again and I would probably embrace offering more of what WE're eating more often, along the lines of the blog I linked above.

I have several Facebook friends who have "liked" various health-conscious pages over the last year or so. Some stuff is still a little too "out there" for me to think about that - juice fasts, pure paleo, etc. But one blog that has particularly affected me has been 100 Days of Real Food. It made me start to think more carefully about what I consider healthy food, not just reading the sugar content, but reading the actual ingredients list, for example. I haven't gone completely nuts - I didn't throw away everything in my house that didn't meet the "Real Food Guidelines", but I have started to read more ingredient lists and start to think more about some of those options. For example, I've started going to the health food store for heavy cream because the ultra-pasteurized versions at the main supermarket have additives, and I've made my own chicken broth twice now in the crockpot (the crockpot is a whole other issue for a whole other post).

I cooked regularly when Stephen and I first got married, but when Little Miss came along, things shifted. We started to more regularly eat frozen meals and I just didn't put as much time into menu planning as I had before. The last couple of months I've been putting more of a concerted effort to make more positive changes in what we eat.

I've been pulling more recipes from 100 Days and also from Weelicious. I've cracked back open my Volumetrics cookbooks. I've been reading labels when I buy things and shopping more at 14 Carrot.

Some more changes that I hope to make soon:

1. Making my own vegetable and beef broth
2. Making Stephen green tea from scratch instead of the bottled teas he's been drinking with all the crazy additives
3. Shopping more at local farmers markets (I have plans to visit one in Lexington on Thursday)
4. Looking for more sources of local meats, eggs, and dairy products (especially meats right now)
5. Trying out lots of other recipes, including sandwich bread, graham crackers, and cheddar bunny-like crackers

This week my goal is to try #3. I'll let y'all know how the Lexington Farmers Market is!