Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes--Clean(er) Eating

The comment from Kelly yesterday was a perfect idea for another blog topic: our diet change.

I made quite a few new friends this year thanks to Dalton being in half day kindergarten. Standing around with the other parents waiting for their half-dayers, a lot of us really bonded. Anyway, one of these moms (my now good friend) sells Juice Plus and is fairly into nutrition. (We don't take Juice Plus, however.) I always thought we had a fairly decent diet but she gave me a CD to listen to featuring one of my favorite trusted sources: Dr. Sears.

He got to talking about processed foods and other topics which got me thinking right around the same time as a lot of my Facebook friends started "liking" the 100 Days of Real Food blog. At first I was annoyed, like, "what's not real about what I'm eating?" Turns out.... a lot!

My wheels got to turnin' and I started looking into it all a bit more. I read Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" and we started talking about making some changes to consuming a whole lot less processed foods. Jason was totally on board but sort of confused about what we were going to eat. I told him we'd eat the same stuff as before, just healthier versions: whole grains, organic options, more things made from scratch. Like, one of our favorites was veggie fajitas. But instead we'd do whole wheat tortillas and organic veggies and organic black beans. Instead of his trusty "Lean Pockets" which he brought to work several times a week I made my own pizza pockets from scratch with whole grain dough, cheese I grated myself, organic tomato sauce, fresh organic produce "toppings". In lieu of the frozen bean and cheese burritos he brought on other days, again, I made my own with dried beans I fixed in the Crock Pot and whole grain tortillas. We often had a lot of leftovers for him to bring to work as well. He rarely ate out anyway.

On New Year's Day, Jason and I sat down to watch Food, Inc. on Netflix and committed to no longer getting disgusting, mass-produced meats. We've always eaten meatless at least a few times a week but we were going to eat even less meat...more of a "side" and less the center of a meal when we did have it. Any meat we consumed was going to be organic and local (when possible) from then on. Grass fed beef, free range chickens, no hormones, no antibiotics....that sort of thing.

We started sort of slowly, we used up a few things we still had in the pantry, packed up and donated others. I got to spending a LOT more time in my kitchen and Jason did some more reading on his own. One of the ideas that particularly resonated with him was Dr. McDougall's "Starch Solution". It goes against so many of the "high protein, low carb" fads lately and instead is actually very high carb and says people don't need as much protein as America makes us think we do. McDougall's diet is also free of animal proteins....so it's basically vegan, but honey is okay. It's not about animal rights for him (the poor, exploited bees) but just no animal protein. No meat, no eggs, no dairy (no fun ;) ). Not even seafood which, if you know J, is a huge shocker! He took it that extra step from what we'd agreed on when we first began this change.

As you might guess, Jason's diet is not for me. Not for the kids either. However, I am the family chef and I'm not about to be making all sorts of things J won't eat so I had him take over the meal planning. I still buy everything and make it, but, as far as "what's for dinner?" that's on him now. So we never have meat. I'm okay with that. I never loved meat but I am a dairy person, fo' sho'! Now I eat it at breakfast or lunch or when we go out.

The kids and I maintain more of a whole, real foods kind of approach. Less "science"....so, when Jason's recipes call for "egg replacer" or "soy milk" I refuse to use them. If I bake muffins for our family breakfast, I use the milk and eggs it calls for and Jason eats it anyway. He doesn't really want the fake, lab produced stuff either. But, when possible, he avoids all such things. It's working for him. He was never overweight to begin with but lost 15 pounds (on his 5' 6" frame!) through diet alone. He is super skinny. With high carbs, people! :) He does supplement with a B-12 vitamin now that he's avoiding animal products.

If the kids are at a birthday party or something, I don't make a big deal about what they're eating....pizza with white flour? Fine. Birthday cake with artificial flavors and colors? Whatevs. I don't want to be "that mom" or for my kids to feel weird. I don't want to give them a complex. But they are learning about making good choices. It helps that so many of our friends are somewhat like-minded and bring "raspberry bars" for birthday treats or at least make their cakes from scratch with organic ingredients.

I took the kids out for dinner recently and Easton was so excited he was going to get to have chicken. He read the grilled chicken option versus the chicken tenders and asked which was healthier and then chose that....with a side of steamed broccoli! And he ate every bite.

I showed Mr. Map-Maker some really cute cupcakes that looked like globes and Autumn saw them and reminded me, "Moooooommmm...artificial colors!" :)

We were reading a label at the grocery store and I asked myself, "Sugar? Why'd they have to put sugar in this?" and Autumn went, "Sugar...blech!" Someone overheard and asked me how I got my kids to feel that way. ;)

Basically we're now a mostly meat-free household. I've made the kids hamburgers on occasion with acceptable beef and made homemade whole grain, baked chicken nuggets a couple of times. Grilled chicken too. But Jason and I don't eat it. I don't even miss it, honestly. I do believe humans are made to eat meat...I just don't. My kids can but it gets expensive to get the quality stuff we now insist on. So they eat it much much less.

We do only whole grains when I bake at home. No refined sugar...just local honey and pure maple syrup. Not all our produce is local and organic but we try to go that route where possible. We joined a CSA for the summer and get loads of fresh veggies from a local farm. We've always had local organic (whole!) milk delivered. We looked into local restaurants that meet our "requirements" for whole grain options and ideally local ingredients when possible and we pretty much only go those places if we eat out. And we just try to do minimally processed foods: no refined grains, no refined sugars especially high fructose corn syrup, nothing artificial like colors or flavors, nothing that isn't a recognizable food on an ingredients list (which hopefully isn't too long a list in the first place). We're certainly not perfect and I make more exceptions than I might ideally like but we're certainly improving.

In addition to the weight Jason's lost, Easton has calmed down a lot. He's always been an energetic boy and we love that about him, but he often could have really dramatic mood swings due to low blood sugar and he was often one of the more disruptive kids in school (just talks a lot). Without knowing that we'd made these changes to our diet at the beginning of this calendar year, E's teachers noticed he'd mellowed and matured. Impressive! He's still very energetic...that's who he is, I just like that he's less disruptive. He focuses better. Also, I don't think Easton's been sick at all since we've changed our diets. Like, not even a cold! You can't help but think it's somewhat related.

I'll likely be sharing quite a few of our favorite recipes and ideas for what we actually eat for those interested.