19 Aug Healthy Family Eating = Planning

OK, so before I get into this post I should tell you that I STILL have to force my kids to eat their vegetables sometimes. sigh. Its frustrating. I have tried pretty hard to land on the healthy side of eating. I would say on a scale of 1-10 we are maybe a 7 most days sometimes a 8. I try to make the best choices I can.

Some people misunderstand eating healthy as “you just want to be skinny”. Sure. I want to be skinny. But I can honestly say changing our eating habits and the brands we buy had NOTHING to do with me wanting to be skinny. Early on in motherhood, I was exposed to a few moms that would read every label at events. I’ll be honest. It was kind of annoying and made me feel a bit defensive. I put it off thinking, “her kids probably have allergies”.

And sure. I found out some of them did. But then someone told me to look up some ingredients on labels.

… to Google I went!

and I almost threw up. EWWWW. We really have NO idea what we are eating AND in addition many researchers are convinced that the increase in certain disease’s we see is directly linked to the changes in food. scary.

So over time, one of the big values I have personally, and for our family, is to eat healthy. For us it has become eating real, wholesome, nutritious foods. This has been quite a journey for me in my life and become a central piece of our family.

Looking back, I grew up in a home where there was a huge period of time that we ate extremely healthy due to my sister’s fight with cancer. During my sister’s sickness, my mom learned a LOT about food and changed our families eating habits. I was young at the time and didn’t really get it. But several years ago, in my 20’s, here I was reading food information and I completely understood the changes my mom made.

After I had child #2 I watched the famous documentary Food Inc and I’d say that dramatically shifted our eating and diet for the better. We’ve gone in different directions over the years but overall we’ve made much better food choices in our house.

Not even delving into all the logistics of chemicals and additives the facts of obesity has proven to be a huge fight for our generation. Unhealthy diet contributes to approximately 678,000 deaths each year in the U.S., due to nutrition and obesity-related diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes. In the last 30 years, obesity rates have doubled in adults, tripled in children, and quadrupled in adolescents.

But do you know what I’ve realized it takes to have better food choices and family dinners?

Time. Lots of time.

This is difficult as family life can move at such a fast pace.

So I want to share with you some planning tools I use to keep us on track in hopes that we can all start off the school year with a great start.

Recipe Binder

You know what I did recently? I went through all my books, magazines, pinned recipes and I chose the ones I wanted to make with healthy ingredients that were basically quick and easy. I either printed them or ripped them out and I placed them in a binder with categories. It took me a couple of hours but it’s saved me so much time and resources.

Meal list

I have a running list of meals I typed up in my binder categorized (chicken, turkey, pork, vegetarian etc) and I have a list of healthy side options.

I also have a list of packed lunch ideas (that my kids will actually eat) and healthy sides. When I plan out my week, I pull these both out, look through them and write my choices on a calendar (I use this calendar). You could use your phone, planner or I simply print my weekly meal plan and leave it in the kitchen.

Grocery list

I despise multiple store shopping but if I have a good list it’s so much easier. I also hate shopping looking at my phone so I go old school and have a paper list I use every week (here’s the link). I just print and plug-in what I need from my meal planning calendar and recipe binder. Then I plug-in what we need for the house. I recently made a home supply list that I printed and keep in my binder, this way I am thinking through every thing in the house and what we might need. Lastly, my husband and I share a list app on our phone. I check that and plug-in anything we’ve noted during the week.

I cannot tell you how much time, money, energy and stress this relieves with my main goal being that we have good food choices planned out all week (also more quality family time and less home stress). So here’s my challenge to you Mama’s: How can you get organized? Think and develop a plan then see how your family does with it and adjust accordingly! Here’s to happy, healthy eating & homes!

Best~Autumn