It’s a good thing no one’s life depends on my next post. I said I’d post healthy ways to cook your food well over a week ago.
Here are some things that helped me when I first began to cook healthy meals:
1) Buy good cookbooks. For me (this was 6 or 7 years ago, I’m sure there are better books now) Andrew Weil’s book The Healthy Kitchen
The Healthy Kitchen was an introduction for me. It got my feet wet and helped with those feelings of being overwhelmed. I didn’t look at it and panic.
The Sonoma Diet on the other hand gave me hives 
But, please don’t let that stop you. Like anything that is worth it, the recipes in the Sonoma Diet take work. And like every new venture after a few times doing it, it is second nature. The Sonoma Diet has amazing recipes. It changed out menu from same-ole-same-ole to restaurant quality. Our kids got excited for Szechuan, Flank steak kabobs, Napa cabbage dishes, Risotto, etc.
I had never heard of Napa cabbage then suddenly I was buying it every week (which, by the way, it is yummy). The Sonoma Diet is a lot of chopping but another reason I really liked it is because of it’s take on health. Lots and lots of veggies, some protein and very little carbs- usually in the form of a whole grain like quinoa or barley.
It also provides snack ideas and daily menus.
2) Make a menu and grocery list. I’m sure most of you already do this but it took me a long time to get there. Occasionally, I’ll go without a list and it’s terrible. I get a piece of paper and write Monday: B: L: D: Then I fill in every meal for 5 or 6 days. I have to also write reminders to myself for when to lay meat out or prepare something in advance.
I make sure to plan in dinner out once or twice also. We budget for it and it provides a little excitement for me
I have heard commercials for things like emealz.com on Dave Ramsey. Never looked into it but it sounds nifty.
3) Prepare meals in advance. I did this a few times and loved the convenience. I wish I could say I did it on my own accord but I actually went to one of those meal places. There just happened to be one next door to Michael’s chiropractic office. The basic premise is that your meats are marinating in a bag and ready to dump in a dish whenever. On the meat bag it listed cooking details and side dishes. For me, if I have the meat ready I’m good to go. I can steam a veggie like anyone else.
After my post on developing healthy eating habits, I was strongly convicted in the middle of the night. I realized how insensitive I probably came off. I remember very well how intimidating it was to make food changes. We get defensive over our diets. But, even more so than that I realize how utterly broke we were when we began to make changes.
How did we make healthy changes when we were broke?? We ate a lot of beans and broccoli. We paid attention to labels. We realized that if we didn’t have much money for groceries then what we did buy better be good.
No we didn’t buy much organic but we drew a line about the ingredients I listed in the other post (no trans-fats, no MSG, no artificial sweetners…).
I just love that I wrote about healthy eating habits then our homeschool mom’s meeting was about healthy eating. Sweet! What an awesome reminder to me about things I knew but have taken for granted that not everyone knows. I tend to think all homeschool moms do the same things I do. Obviously, this isn’t so.
Here are a few websites about healthy living:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/Home/index.cfm
http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com
