Updates

We've been transitioning to whole foods at my house for a little over a month now. We chose to transition to whole foods gradually for a couple of reasons:

#1 - I didn't want the food we already had to go to waste.

#2 - I don't know how to cook anything unless is comes in a box.

So over the last month, we have been eating SOME processed foods, just to get rid of things and help ease the learning curve.

This change has been difficult to say the least, but I believe that true change is a process and not something you can do overnight.

Here's some updates on the progress at my house:

- We gave family members and friends some of our processed foods that haven't been opened. Everything else has it's own shelf in our pantry so we know what we need to get rid of. Some things, I just threw away. Hate to waste food like that, but I'm not going to lose sleep over throwing away that last little bit of salad dressing.

- I have a freezer stocked full of homemade zucchini muffins, mini breakfast casseroles, and homemade pancakes for us to grab in the mornings. I also have some homemade apple butter to put on our pancakes so we don't have to use sugary syrups.

- Also in the freezer, we have some frozen meals that I made a double batch of. These are great for busy nights, all I have to do is take some frozen chili out of the freezer and heat it up!

- I have made huge batches of homemade enchilada sauce and cream of chicken soup. We make casseroles and Mexican food a lot so I made giant batches of both of these and froze them in 12 ounce portions.

- For those nights when we have a sweet tooth, I have a batch of homemade cookie dough in the freezer. Turns out that with homemade cookies, we get full after just a couple of cookies and we don't feel the need to gorge ourselves.

- Our pantry is mostly filled with the basic baking ingredients, canned tomatoes (with little or no salt), whole wheat pasta, coffee, tea, beans, and peanut butter.

- We no longer use white sugar or any artificial sweeteners. With our morning coffee or tea, we will have a spoonful of honey or maple syrup instead.

- Free Range Hubby and I are BOTH off of sodas completely! YAY!!!

- I have arranged a trade with friends so that we can diversify our homemade food supplies.

- My mother is giving us a bread machine for us to start making our own bread. I just don't have the time to go to multiple stores for our food so I figure making our own will be the most convenient. I can't wait to try it out!

- I have a few basic recipes that the family likes for us to cook throughout the week. Some of our new favorites include homemade granola, no-bake energy balls (see previous post), refried beans, and fried rice.

We still have some processed foods in our house. Some I'm OK with. Every once in a while, I just want a bowl of sugary cereal. But we've found brands like Cascadian Farms and Mom's Best Naturals that make yummy sugar laden cereals that are made with ingredients we can actually pronounce. And they're delicious! I'm also a fan of Annie's foods for Free Range Bennett. Their snacks still contain many ingredients, but they again are all ones you can pronounce. These products I'm just not ready to part with. But I believe moderation is the key.

I'm still working on ways to incorporate some of our favorite foods into our new whole foods lifestyle. Condiments are a big challenge. I love ketchup. I'm still trying to decide if I want to try a couple of less processed brands or make my own. I have some salad dressings that I can't wait to try once we run out of the processed stuff. And I'm still trying to figure out how to either make my own tortillas or find a store that sells minimally processed ones. We still have pizza every couple of weeks, and I don't see a problem with that. And when we eat out, I try to choose dishes that I know will be less processed.

Again, this is all a process. But I'm thrilled about the progress we've made. I've found a love of cooking that I didn't know existed within me, and I feel better than I've felt in a long time. I can't wait to see what the next month has in store!