Journey to Real Foods: Plan Something
Last week we changed over our breakfast items to whole food, and I’m wondering……how did you do? Where you able to toss your cereal out and stick with homemade items? I uploaded a few picks from our weeks breakfasts {oatmeal, sourdough bread used to make french toast, scrambled eggs, and sourdough pancakes} to my Flickr photostream and you’re able to add your own as well if you took any.
Because last weeks “challenge” was a bit tougher in the aspect of not only the time it took each day, but also the fact that you had to get over one of America’s love affairs – cereal. This week we’ll do something a bit easier.
I want you to plan just one days food.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.
If you already plan your menus, fabulous! Take it one step further and plan one day of completely unprocessed foods.
Don’t do a menu plan yet? Take it easy on yourself and eat what you normally would, just make a plan and stick to it.
Menu planning is one of the only ways I’m able to actually stick to eating whole (and homemade) foods. Otherwise I find myself at 5:00pm wondering what I’m making for dinner! Making your meals like this is just a welcome mat for processed and unwholesome foods to enter your home. It’s also a great way to make sure the food you already have doesn’t go to waste.
Menu Plan Basics
- Take inventory of your fridge and cupboards. Check to see what you have on hand for each meal.
- Make a list of everything you need to buy in order to complete those meals
- Go shopping
- Write a physical list and place it on your fridge
- The night before prep whatever you can
- The day of – stick to your list!
What do you think….can you do it?
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Having a menu plan and doing some of the prep the night before makes preparing whole foods SOOOO much simpler! I wouldn’t eat any other way!
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Breakfast wasn’t that much extra work (I don’t like cereal) other than remembering when the alarm went off to get my rear end up and make it before the baby got up. I used to get something while the baby and I were running errands later in the morning. Real breakfasts held me over 4 hours longer than the food I got on the run. Lunch and snacks are going to be tricky as my cooking/eating time is very limited during the day. This is going to take some thinking but I think I can make it work.
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donielle Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 10:25 am
@HeatherG, Can’t wait to hear what you come up with!
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We’ve been eating healthy breakfasts for a number of years; my problem is that I get tired of the same things we eat day in and day out. Our normal fare is some type of eggs, sometimes sprouted toast with butter, fruit and sprouted nuts with cinnamon and yogurt, and occasionally bacon – although we usually save it for the weekends to save money. Sometimes we have a ham and we use it for soup or a main entree and then leftovers for breakfast. We eat soaked cereal very occasionally, but limit our grains to a sparing consumption to keep health problems away. I just found out that millet is not good for hypothyroid, which I am, so that leaves me even less options for cereal since I am also allergic to wheat. I am going to start trying quinoa again (my boys don’t like it though) and amaranth, but I’m less sure about the amaranth since I’ve never used it for cereal.
Oh boy, I am certainly guilty of waiting until the last minute to make dinner. In fact, I do it many nights a week! However, having little to no processed foods in our house hasn’t really been a problem. We’ve been processed foods free for nearly 5 years. I just make sure I have plenty of good food on hand to prepare, even if it does take me some time to think of something exciting to eat. I am known to take ground beef out of the freezer at 5:45 p.m. and have no plan whatsoever. But here’s some of the things I come up with to eat in those instances – tacos with plenty of vegetables cooked in butter, refried beans with bacon drippings, and sprouted, organic, corn tortillas; my beef skillet (works for steak and roast beef too) with potatoes, onions, bell peppers, bacon, tomatoes and tomato sauce, and sometimes we add sour cream or homemade yogurt in at the end (so yummy!), meatballs with our homemade sauce and vegetables, beef and rice casserole with onions, peppers, tomatoes, and chili powder/cumin mixture. Then there’s the whole chicken I roast once a week, sometimes we have salmon or codfish, and occasionally pork chops. I agree that making meal plans is a better way to go, however. I’ve just always been a girl that flies by the seat of my pants! I guess old habits die hard, or maybe, not at all!
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donielle Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 10:22 am
@Raine Saunders, Interesting about the millet and hypothyroid……
A beef skillet sounds yummy, I haven’t done one of those in a long while!
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I gotta say that your breakfasts sound really good. I thought I was doing good by buying cereal from Trader joes (Joe’s O’s like cheerios) then I read this..lol so cereal is bad?? lol oh boy. I’m learning!!
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donielle Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 10:19 am
@Jen@ After The Alter, I know what you mean – we did the organic cereal for awhile too! It’s just the way they make it destroys a lot of the nutrients. I haven’t bought it in a couple years now and we don’t miss it at all!
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A friend recently sent me a link to your cereal post. Oh my! It made me revamp our family’s breakfast menus and challenge myself to a no-cereal for breakfast month. This week, we are starting with all crock pot breakfasts. My iideas are at http://wonderandwill.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/menu-monday-the-no-cereal-for-breakfast-challenge/ If you have any to add, please do!
Also, I linked the above post to your cereal post. Trying to spread your important word…
Have a blessed week!
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donielle Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 10:12 am
@Martianne, It’s pretty crazy isn’t it? I grew up on cereal everyday and carried that into my marriage as well. I should try moire crockpot breakfasts though!
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Martianne Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 10:41 am
@donielle, We just had the slow cooker polenta today. Thumbs up from the two eyar old, Mommy and Daddy, but the four year old wouldn’t touch it. I am excited with this easy, basic recipe, because not only will it make for warm, filling rbeakfasts, but the leftovers will be great warmed over with toppings like tomatoes, greens, garlic and onions, etc. for lunch and as patties with syrup and whatnot for snacks and breakfasts. Plus, one night, I want to do a Polenta Bar for dinner.
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