 |
| Snow ice cream!!! They ate it ALL. It even had some dirt in it :) |
I am not the healthiest mama around, but I do try to pay attention to what my family eats. I TRY to make healthy food within our dietary restrictions, but
often sometimes am just too tired to
care pay better attention.
Some nights I get creative with gluten, dairy and egg free ideas (like this silly looking pizza). And I think, "Good job mom! Chirpee won't feel so deprived being on a gluten free diet if you make him pizza!" And I enjoy the pizza too because it is such a rare treat since finding out I'm intolerant to the above listed "free" items. Deereandy thought it was terrible, but for those who haven't had "real" pizza for a loooooong time, you'd would really love my version :)
There are times when I get creative and feel like a kitchen superhero because I finally got around to slicing up the butternut squash for soup.
And in the same day, I make a
really fabulous recipe for gluten-free thin mint cookies.
So I put the soup on to simmer prior to puree. I'm on a roll between three new recipes in one day!
 |
| Allergen free vanilla cornbread - super yum with coconut sugar! |
But then there is tonight's meal which really represents my ongoing conversion in my head. The running dialogue that runs commentary on everything I do in the kitchen (including poor parenting techniques).
I am short for ideas at noon and think...I have to do something. I take a couple over-large hormone infested, chicken barn raised, GMO grain fed, boneless, skinless chicken breasts out to defrost and shake my head over the difficulty in feeding a family healthy meals on a budget.
Jump forward to 5:00pm, about 30 minutes past my optimal "start" time for making dinner. I am sitting in the recliner, googling on my iphone about adequate calcium intake for children and have two boys on my lap who are both holding books up to me, "read mama", "can you read this mom?". I really just want to read the abstract from the journal article, but realize I'm being negligent in my kitchen and my boys' reading education. I read four books and get out of the chair after tickling them out of my lap.
Five-ten and I'm looking around the kitchen...hmmmm, what am I going to do with two chicken breasts and a family of four???
I decide on chopping them up, frying them in various spices and adding them to noodles in a sauce. This rest of the pros and cons of my cooking dialogue are best put in numbered format.
Pros about my dinner:
- frugal - only uses two chicken breasts
- 6 cloves of garlic - very anti-infective and immune boosting
- olive oil - cold pressed, natural, healthy oil
- water kefir - good probiotics
- apple cider vinegar - organic, with "the mother" (aka - good bugs) - lots of good said about it
- brown rice noodles - better than using white rice pasta
- sea salt - more mineral content, no processing
- homemade sauce - no processing or additives
- peas
- salad
- homemade salad dressing including organic vinegar and olive oil and loads of garlic
Cons about my dinner:
- note above rant on the quality of chicken breasts
- "oh, I think we eat too much rice, probably causing gastric cancer. It isn't even organic."
- sea salt - "oh ya, I keep meaning to read up on sea salt quality and iodine" Do I need to supplement my family's iodine for thyroid health?
- canned tomatoes - probably BPA lined, added salt and calcium chloride (do we need it?)
- white sugar added to my tomatoes simmering. Should have used natural or low glycemic option?
- non organic salad
- frozen peas too often - need more variety
- apple cider vinegar packaged in a plastic bottle - probably leaching chemicals...
And to top it all off - we have had too much sugar the past month! They boys sure are happy about it though!
Does anyone else analyze their food like this? Or am I just obsessive?
