back to processed food

It's been a while. I apologize. I was going to write about how wonderful it was to bite into a Goldfish cracker on April 1st and how much easier life is with convenience foods, but, after a week of being back on processed foods (minimal, but back), I have to say that I will be reverting to an unprocessed lifestyle permanently. I'm not going to go completely overboard and never eat a cracker, but I will be much more mindful of the things I put in my body and the bodies of my children. Matt is a big boy, he's on his own!

A recap on what worked and what didn't in case you would like to make some small changes:

Snack Food--sucks to make on your own. The time it takes to make crackers from start to finish baking can be more than an hour. The recipe I like the best turns out several dozen, but they are eaten just as quickly. Delicious? Yes. Practical? Not always. This is one of those things where I would go the organic route at the grocery store. And try to get whole wheat crackers. We were successful in making our own hummus and it was very cost effective, but when we ran out of the crackers to dip into it, the hummus sat uneaten and was thrown away. We will continue making our own hummus and other dips, just using little store bought vessels. And vegetables! Snacking on bell peppers of all colors became a new habit that I will keep going. Especially with the toddler, she was a big fan!

Meals--I actually had to prepare meals. Not just dinner. Lunch, breakfast, third meal, the other nine thousand meals my toddler demands a day. It was exhausting. We ate out three times all month. That's it. Three. That is a lot of home cooked meals. I hate cooking. It was torture. But it was pretty tasty! We made our own pasta (easy and delicious), lots of fish, veggies, etc. I planned out the dinners for the entire month beforehand and stuck to what I wrote out about fifty percent of the time. Once we went back to incorporating convenience foods like store bought tortillas and pasta, it was very clear that the fresh stuff was much better. Due to a time constraint and two very needy little people in my life, the fancy stuff will have to wait for the weekends.

Bread--Homemade bread is something I grew up with, so I have some experience making it. It was nice to have fresh bread every week. Especially the week Matt made sourdough. I knew I married the right guy! It was amazing. He feeds his starter every other day and the end result is a delicious round of carbohydrates. Bread is something we will continue to make and not buy whenever possible.

So. It wasn't easy, but it also wasn't as terrible as I anticipated.  The only major pain the ass was the snacking. We ate a lot of Cuties and Halos last month. I realized about a week into it that I picked the wrong month to go unprocessed. March has 31 days. I should have done February.

I urge you all to try and make one small change for next month to get something processed out of your current diet. Maybe soda? Potato chips? By the way, those things suck to make. I tried doing them as baked chips several times and they were a disaster.

Happy Healthy Eating! Next post won't be so boring :)