Are You Confused About What to Feed Your Family?
The diet that we feed our family will significantly influence their overall health and wellbeing. A healthy diet can help your kids improve their energy, behavior, moods, and learning. Eating wholesome foods also supports healthy immunity, encourages sound sleep, and prevents disease. Many parents want to feed their families well but are confused about how to begin. If that's you, the confusion ends here! Here is a quick 101 to family health.
What is Meant by the Term “Whole Foods”
Whole Foods Are Real Foods
They are foods that come from a plant or an animal. Whole foods do not have unhealthy ingredients such as refined sugar, trans-fats, additives, chemicals and food coloring. Clean, simple & fresh foods.
Why Eat a Whole Foods Diet?
Chronic Illness in Children is on the Rise
Most kids today eat a diet unusually high in calories, sugar, and processed ingredients that do not provide much nutritional value. This may be okay as an occasional indulgence, such as at a birthday party or other event. But if processed foods are the primary staple in your child's diet, their health will suffer. Recent studies show 43% of children have a chronic illness with the top five being allergies, type 1 diabetes, neurodevelopmental illness, celiac disease, and inflammatory bowel disease. The inconvenient truth is the rise in these disorders correlates with the expansion of industrialized and processed foods.
Will Eating a Whole Foods Diet Raise My Families Food Costs?
Study’s Say No…
Many people believe feeding their family a whole foods diet will raise their already taxing food costs. Here’s the good news! Studies comparing healthy and convince food diets showed the average food costs for a healthy diet accounted for 18% of annual household income, and convenience food diets accounted for 37% of household income. The price per calorie of a convenience foods diet was 24% higher than the healthy diet! Diets based heavily on foods from convenient sources are more expensive than a well-planned and budgeted healthy menu.
Budgeting Requires Change
The secret to budgeting for a whole foods diet is to change your family’s habits surrounding meals. If you continue to purchase convenience foods, eat out regularly, and hit the drive-through along with purchasing whole foods; your food costs will go up. Eat seasonal and look for deals e.g Food lovers market has great weekly deals on fresh foods.
Meal Planning for the Family
Batch Cooking
As a busy working parent, batch-cooking has been a saving grace for my family and me. Since I work, I am not able to cook every day, so on the weekends, and on nights I am available, I batch-cook. The idea with batch cooking is to double or triple your recipe and store the leftovers for another day. You don't need to make a whole meal either; you can prepare parts of it, like a batch of quinoa, baked sweet potatoes, potato salad, or steamed broccoli. The best part is it saves you time from doing more cooking and washing dishes later in the week! The key to successful batch cooking is meal planning. Plan how you will store your food, when you will shop and what day you will set aside to prepare your meals.
Quick Mealtime Ideas
Breakfast
Scrambled eggs & baby spinach or avo
Mini egg muffins with bacon and spinach
Stuffed sweet potatoes (stuff with sausage, kale, cinnamon, etc
Fresh fruit and plain yogurt
Banana, blueberry and spinach smoothie with 1 scoop of protein powder
Gluten-free pancakes (add 1scoop of protein powder to mix) with 100% real maple syrup and sliced strawberries
Gluten-free oatmeal topped with almond butter, banana, flaxseed,100% maple syrup and cinnamon
Overnight oats with fresh fruit (recipe on my web page)
Mango Parfait with granola (recipe on my web page)
A healthy smoothie (recipe on my web page)
Carrot Apple muffin (recipe on my web page)
Lunch
Healthy wraps with salad and chicken
Rice paper rolls (Recipe on my web page)
Miso noodle jar (Recipe on my web page)
Rainbow salad jar
Tuna salad with chopped apples
Hummus with chopped veggies
Apples with almond butter
Chia seed pudding
Date balls
Low-sugar coconut yogurt with cinnamon & sliced banana
Clean trail mix
Dates
Avo dip and carrot sticks or broccoli stems
Fruit
Crackers with tomatoes and cheese
Leftovers
Dinner
Roasted chicken and broccoli with nutritional yeast sprinkles
Spiced vegetable salad with green glow sauce (Recipe on my web page)
Caprese chicken breast (Recipe on my web page)
Taco salad bar with ground beef, black beans, quinoa, olives, tomato, avocado and your kids favorite dressing
Burger with a gluten-free bun (or lettuce wrap) and sweet potato fries
Falafels with healthy greens and avocado wrap (Recipe on my web page)
Herbed chicken meatballs with cauliflower mash
Pork chops with sautéed apples (if your kids are open minded, add sautéed sauerkraut)
Beef and broccoli stir-fry with cauliflower rice
Gluten-free spaghetti with homemade sauce and a big salad
Protect your family and teach them how to enjoy real foods.
