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Need help from moms who cook from scratch or less processed foods!
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Anonymous
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OP, you might want to look into the 6 O'Clock Scramble. It's a subscription email service run by a local woman. She gives you easy, healthy, kid-friendly recipes each week, along with a shopping list to cover all ingredients. I have never signed up since we are 100% vegetarian, and her service has only some vegetarian options, but I have several friends who swear by it. You can get a free sample newsletter to try out, and if you like it, I think you could probably subscribe for a few months till you find a batch of recipes that your whole family likes, and then just go forward with those. Good luck!
http://thescramble.com/ |
Anonymous
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To the thread starter-
First you need to know what processed food is. Here are some examples: Pasta, even the whole wheat and sometimes the whole wheat is worse than the old school semolina, especially if your little one has been raised on extruded breakfast cereals, which makes up over 99% of what is on the shelves from Whole Foods to 7-Eleven. I can elaborate more on extrusion if you'd like. Tortillas, heavily processed flour, virtually unrecognizable by the human body. Milk, quite a deep subject here but we are not designed to drink cow milk. Organic doesn't matter because they're being fed organic corn. Corn fed cows make up over 99% of the market (goes hand in hand with breakfast cereal). On average, there are over 27,000 different cows in one gallon of conventionally raised cow milk. Cows eat grass. A cow eating grass is normal and it will live upwards of 25 years where a cow eating corn will die in as little as 3. If it does that to the cow, what does the cows by-product do to you? Also, the calcium found in milk is unabsorbable due to it being attached to casein, but the dairy industry won't tell you that. Cows get their calcium from grass, they don't make it themselves. Nonfat milks are processed foods as well. The body will look for what's missing and one will begin to desire stimulating foods. Fat, Salt, Sugar. These three triggers will overstimulate the palate, leaving a desire for more and more stimulating foods to satiate the craving. I can be long-winded, but this is my job. I hope you find some answers. |
Anonymous
| About the beans: Whole Foods has jarred beans -- I thinkt hat would solve the BPA problem. |
Anonymous
what about frozen beans and veggies? -small flat burgers on rolls -bake chicken -rice -cooked carrots with cinnamon -steak -scallops -fresh bread -salad -meatballs and meat loaf [egg, spices, milk, bread or make bread crumbs]-can make a dipping sauce -ham Check the labels on cereal boxes-you will be surprised that some of the "healthy" expensive products are worse than the big names. Everyone is out to make money. |
Anonymous
| Just curious, 17:44...what is your job? |
Anonymous
I'm a counselor and consultant. I teach people about food and how to find what foods help and hurt you. Through the process, I help to eliminate processed, isolated food stuffs while moving people to a plant-based diet (I don't use the term "Vegan" or "Vegetarian" because some people do alright with a few animal products in their lives). I'm also a live-in nanny for a young lady who has Down Syndrome and is treated solely through food therapy, I've been with her for over three years now. |
Anonymous
I am in public health and though I work in policy now, the early part of my career was in consumer messaging around health, especially around healthy eating, physical activity, basic prevention. What I fear when I see your post above, is that while you make some great points, the message can get screwed up pretty quickly when it gets to the masses. In my own experience in working with moms who go to McDonalds and Taco Bell five times a week to feed the family, we don't want to the message to be: tortillas are bad, and those homemade quesadillas that you tried to make, with real cheese instead of "cheese product" and some real veggies, that aren't deep fried, are better than what you are getting at fast food. Yet, if the message becomes, tortillas are overly processed, then they throw their hands up and say, screw it, back to Taco Bell. My parents are retired and live on a farm. They have a greenhouse, a huge garden, some smaller gardens. Their chickens give them eggs every morning. It's been great for my kids - to learn about growing your own food and where food really comes from. A big value we are instilling in them is that healthy, wholesome food is good. That food fuels your body, and is also a source of enjoyment, and that a meal doesn't come from a box. DH has a family pizza recipe from scratch and it's an all day affair. We hang out in the kitchen and cook and bake and have fun. When we can't get to my parent's farm, we visit our own local farmer's market. But, we are also a two working family household who enjoys other things besides cooking and food prep, so we do take some shortcuts. It's all about balance and moderation, and ensuring that the bulk of what you eat is wholesome. If you are working with people one on one who want to make changes, I think that's great! I'd actually love to get some tips from you - I bet I could learn a lot. I just don't want the message to get to complicated and elitist and I fear that this new era of eating organic, etc., though I'm a huge advocate and supporter, could leave some folks behind. People actually can do all right making simple, wholesome meals and taking some shortcuts. |
Anonymous
| Why would you need to "treat" someone with Down syndrome? |
Anonymous
| OP, I like to cook a lot, and I don't know how old your kids are, but re: your question of how to streamline having kids help, I like to prep veggies + measure ingredients and have them mise en place. You know, all out in little bowls. So my kids are more just dumping things in and stirring than waiting/helping to actually chop or grate. Standby meals: black beans + rice w/whatever toppings the kids want (they can be picky about what to put on); ground turkey tacos, roast chickens, enchiladas, burritos. |
Anonymous
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OP here these tips are great! I am definetely a beginner at this and no where near making my own yogurt or pasta. We don't go to fast food but the frozen dinners. chicken nuggets, Kraft Mac and Cheese was getting out of hand.
I'm phasing things in to avoid a revolt. I went from frozen pancakes to a boxed mix that had less sugar. Now, we have moved to homemade pancakes with the sweet potato. We still do boxed Mac and Cheese but I'm buying the kind at Whole Foods that has much less salt and no artificial flavors or dyes. I know it is not as healthy as making my own pasta and sauce but it is close enough. I'm not a great cook and my kids are incredibly picky. I have got them eating the breaded chicken tenders in the whole foods prepared area or the veggie frozen ones. I've tried a zillion chicken nugget recipes and none have worked for them but I'll keep trying. We switched to having the deli slice oven roasted turkey breast for sandwiches instead of using the packaged sandwich meats like ham. We do alot of very basic cut up fruit or steamed vegetables. |
Anonymous
Sounds like you are doing great OP. You are taking the right approach and making some good changes. |
Anonymous
Down Syndrome causes a plethora of issues. In my case, the young lady I take care of has congenital heart disease and has had four open-heart surgeries, two before she was a year old. That is the biggest issue we face with her. So, in treating that, you stay away from things like salt, among many other personal dietary issues. Her veins and arteries are the same size as when she was born, so the less viscous her blood is, the better she operates. That's just one issue and example. I hope that answers the question. |
Anonymous
I think it's wonderful that your children have access to a real farm. I grew up in the middle of Oklahoma, dirt poor with my Chinese/Tibetan grandmother to teach me about the food we ate and our role alongside it and nature as a whole. I'm a PhD, Traditional Chinese Medicine, the root of food energetics. I teach people about food, not about diet. Diet is individual, and knowing your way around the food supply we've been given is an empowering thing. It allows you to understand just exactly what food is right for you, and to do that, you must keep most, if not all of your food in it's whole state. My message is simply to keep everything in its whole, infinitely complex state. Start stripping and processing it, then you could be joining the masses with heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Of course, it's deeper than that, but for the sake of this thread, I'll spare everyone the boring stuff... |
Anonymous
| PP with the PhD and Chinese/Tibetan GM (so cool!)...I don't want to be spared the boring stuff. How/where do I learn more? |
zumbamama
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I agree, please spill your thoughts PPs. |