Each Monday this year, I will share one simple tip you can implement to make your life a little safer.
Image courtesy of lamnee/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
We’re starting this year’s healthy journey with what might be a huge change to you and your family. To begin a safer, simpler life, though, you need to make sure your food is both safe and simple. And that means real food.
Eliminating processed foods doesn’t mean you need to have a bland diet – quite the contrary. Once you begin eating actual food instead of processed junk you’ll notice a wide variety of delicious flavors. Quick and easy food in a box will lose its appeal.
To start, look through your pantry, cupboards, refrigerator and freezer. What do you see? If a bunch of boxes are sitting on your shelves, consider donating them to a food pantry. Or, if your finances are tight and you can’t afford to give away food that you’ve already purchased, plan on spacing the junk out in your menus until it’s used up.
When you go grocery shopping, start buying staples like brown rice, beans, unrefined pastas, unrefined flours (with or without gluten), nuts, fresh or frozen vegetables and fruit, fresh or frozen meat, and fresh dairy products.
If you’re not quite sure if something is processed, don’t worry – simply check the ingredient label. If you see a long list of words you can’t pronounce, you’ll want to put the item back on the shelf (the fewer ingredients the better).
Looking for specifics? As a quick rule of thumb, stop buying potato chips and other bagged snacks, fruit snacks, fruit juices, soda pop, cookies and other boxed or bagged bakery items, as well as ready-to-make meals in a box or bag. If those unhealthy foods aren’t brought into your house, you won’t be tempted to eat them.
By cutting out processed foods, you’ll actually know what you’re eating because your foods and drinks won’t be filled with a bunch of artificial flavors, colors or preservatives. If your diet has included a lot of processed food in the past, you should notice a big change with your healthier food choices – you should have more energy, and you might lose weight. If you have children with attention or hyperactivity issues, you will most likely notice a huge change, too.
Talk back
How much processed food do you typically buy? What are some real – and fresh – alternatives? If you already eat real food, did you ever choose to cut processed food out of your diet – or have you always been a healthy eater?
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Today I’m linking up with Time Warp Wife.
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That’s a very good one to start with. I’m doing this for some time now. I never bought much processed foods, but now i don’t (at least as much as possible, some canned foods we can’t do without, but i choose the ones with the least chemicals added). It amazes me that still we always have processed food in the house, because of visitor’s gifts… especially junk treats to the children (which i give them in small portions or if it gets to much i donate it to the youth group :-) better for twenty kids to share the sugar rush than 2). My latest change in the food department is that i banned white sugar and white flour completely from my house (but we’ll still eat white bread and cookies when invited somewhere and it’s served). I do one big monthly grocery shopping now since 4 months (only go back for more milk plus we get a organic veggies every other week). It saves me so much time and money. I now know exactly how much of which food we eat per month and i have a variety of basic real food that can be used to cook up many different recipes.
It’s so great to hear from you, Lydia! I love to hear what’s going on in your kitchen … oh, how I hope I’ll be brave enough this year to take the no white sugar, no white flour plunge!
Blessings to you!
Yeah, it’s crazy how much the whites are present everywhere! I only made that decision based on the fact that i’ve been making sourdough bread from whole grains for a while now and after much of a learning curve the breads are getting better and we have a health bread bakery in our community that also does sour dough bread, so we don’t entirely depent on my bread making (sanity hello!) And for the treats department….almonds, dark chocolate, real cocoa, coconut shavings, nuts and dried fruits. That was the first thing i researched after diving into the baddy grain facts. Can’t live without cake and cookies ;) it’s a tasty adventure. Next recipe to try: coconut filled chocolat balls.