New Year's Real Food Resolutions

This post is written by Wendy.

With 38 years of eating, 6 years of studying clinical nutrition, and 15 years of feeding a family behind me, I feel like I’m only beginning to get a grasp on a truly healthy view of food.

I’ve long been a healthy eater by most standards, especially those I studied and taught in my former life as a dietitian. Yet much of what I built our family eating patterns upon has been up-ended as I’ve looked more to the specific needs of my children.

My husband Chad and I have four growing girls. They’ve always loved helping me in the kitchen, for which I am very grateful. We’ve made many wonderful memories in our aprons!

I specifically recall a conversation with an acquaintance in Ohio roughly six years ago. My daughters were 7, 4 and newborn at the time, and as I chatted with this mother of teenage daughters, she shared about her girls’ premature “development” and their family’s recent decision to purchase organic milk based on her personal reading about the hormones and antibiotics in conventional milk. I had always walked right past the organic section in our local Kroger, focused solely on keeping my monthly grocery budget in check. However, we decided that with four girls, the extra expense of organic milk would be worth it if the concerns were even remotely legitimate.

Ultimately, that conversation was what moved feeding my family beyond a simple financial decision in the grocery aisles and opened my eyes to the need to (re)educate myself.

Fast-forward to mid-2009, when the frustration of one daughter who has struggled with learning challenges and one who is plagued by constant intestinal issues drove me to tears. I prayed even more earnestly for direction in helping them where medical professionals and medications could not. The One who created them and loves them best is also my Counselor, and so I began to pour out my heart to God more regularly on behalf of my children. I also began to read and ask a lot of questions, slowly coming to terms with the humbling realization that I hadn’t learned much of practical value in graduate school after all.

The new learning curve was and is steep. Reading The Maker’s Diet and watching Food, Inc. have been helpful. Our best decision thus far has been joining a local meat-share program, which has provided a freezer full of grass-fed meats which I get to experiment with each week (a big shout out to Falling Sky Farm). I have to say I pretty much feel like a newlywed again, since only about half of my attempts over the past six months or so have gotten the “thumbs-up!” I am so thankful for the challenge, though, and how it is stretching me.

In 2009, we began by tackling the snacks around here, trying our best to avoid the pre-packaged items, and going instead for apples and peanut butter or cheese or mixed nuts. This was a really big deal at first, since we eat six times a day every day – seriously! That’s 18 meals and 18 snacks per day – all making a mess on the island and counters in my kitchen. We do still grab peanut butter crackers and granola bars from Sam’s occasionally, but the girls turn their noses up at them unless they’re really hungry and we’re truly “on the go.” Even my 5 year-old readily prepares her own snack rather than looking for a boxed item now.

In 2010, I really wanted to make a major kitchen transition – you know, throw out everything you’ve ever purchased and never buy it again. My husband didn’t so much go for that, but in his wisdom offered to discuss what would be most beneficial for our particular family and our current stage of life.

These are the goals Chad and I laid out for 2010 in January, dubbing them “the four B’s”:

BREAD - We began making our own sandwich bread from freshly-ground wheat berries the first Saturday in January – one year under our belts now. Yeah! We’ve had some really “dry” weeks, where even the toast wasn’t so great, but overall it’s been a good experience and I think we’re moving toward
more consistently edible bread.

BUTTER instead of margarine – and more of it. While we were at it, we also got rid of all cooking spray and cooking oils, keeping only coconut and olive.

BREAKFAST - We became much more intentional about incorporating a protein source every morning. This has often been eggs, but we have counted whole milk yogurt, too. Mid-year we also did away with any and all breakfast cereals (read why here). I have to tell you, my kids (and husband) really fretted about this one for a few weeks. Now? Well, I made our traditional huge batch of sweet potatoes for a Christmas Eve dinner party, which needed a couple of cups of Corn Flakes on top. The remainder of it sat in the pantry untouched for two weeks without anyone even asking for it (Chad now claims he forgot it was there!). They’ve really begun to enjoy baked oatmeal, yogurt with granola, homemade muffins, and such.

And, finally, BEDTIME - Believing adequate rest was probably the main thing lacking in our girls’ lives, we resolved to re-establish earlier bedtimes for all four of them. That lasted about a week. We’re not nearly as good at the whole bedtime thing as when we just had one child. Oh well!

kombucha

The things that were added in along the way in 2010 were learning to make dairy kefir (used primarily for soaking oats and wheat so far) and kombucha in early summer. We made 6 quart-sized jars of the soda-style kombucha every week for about 5 months, interrupted by a family trip in December. My girls started begging to make it again – they were very glad to get back to it this month!

As for 2011, Chad and I haven’t taken the time together yet for goal-setting, but we will!

Right now, my thoughts are to branch out beyond bread and pancakes with the freshly-ground wheat (and to try other grains as well). This should be a little easier with my new Bosch – I never thought I would be so excited about receiving kitchen appliances from my husband for Christmas!

Another goal is to return to our pattern of hosting other families for supper 2-3 times per month. Actually, it’s not so much that we haven’t had friends over, but more that when we do host, I still serve one of several tried and true recipes adopted over the past decade. I need to figure out how to prepare and serve “real food” recipes that would be crowd-pleasers.

Finally, I would love to build on our weekly farmers’ market purchases of last spring, summer, and fall. Oh, how I miss the farmers’ market! I’m thinking the goal might be to double the amount of produce I choose each week in order to put some aside for winter. (Help! I have no idea how to do that!)

Once Chad and I sit down to talk, he’ll probably boil it all down to a few simple words for me. He’s good like that!

Thanks for the invitation to share our baby steps, Julie. Thinking back over our recent journey has made me realize how far we’ve already come. Now even the larger steps that remain ahead don’t seem nearly so scary anymore!

-Wendy