Our Journey to Real Food

What are Real Foods? Real Foods are foods that are not processed. They are found in the store in their natural state, unprocessed.
When I married my husband we decided to eat healthier. Now we did not define what that meant. But we both agreed that it meant we would not buy junk food. We would not buy sweets. If we wanted baked items and sweets we would make them at home. 
I had always eaten whole wheat flour and fresh food from the organic garden my mother had.  When I got married I started making more of my own food. I would cook on Sunday’s enough food to take us through the week. At the time I did not know they had a name for this, Batch Cooking. I would roast a roast. Make some soup and bake whatever sweets we wanted for the rest of the week. I took my lunch to work most days. I was interested in eating Real Food and being thrifty too. 
When we had our first child we decided we would eat the Whole Foods way.  I started using whole wheat flours. Eventually I made the change in our flours, pastas, and rice to whole grains.  I found great support for these decisions in my local La Leche League Group.  With their support I delayed introducing solids until my children were ready. I did this by looking for signs for beginning solids.   As my family grew so did our voyage to Real Food.
I used to pride myself on feeding my family good food for very little money.  I was hesitant to make the change to whole grain pastas, because the cost was so much more. But from the very beginning I noticed that my family ate less. You see the whole grain pastas and brown rice were simply more filling than the white enriched products. I no longer cooked a whole box and my family did not need to go back for seconds.
Along the way my husband who was an avowed meat and potatoes man learned to eat many new foods. Today he whole heartedly embraces fish, and meatless/vegetarian meals on a regular basis. In fact he will get grilled tilapia for lunch at work.  My kids ask for things like wasa crackers with mozzarella and pesto to take with them for school lunches.
We are omnivores at our house. We eat meat, but try to make it good quality meat. Local grass fed beef is one of our favorites. Besides the health benefits it just tastes better.  We eat fish, of all sorts. We particularly like salmon and flounder, Well all but Pumpkin, according to him Seafood makes him Seasick.  We eat a variety of legumes and grains. All sorts of beans are consumed here, but I think our favorites are black beans.  We are always trying new grains. Just today I picked up some millet to try. My husband wanted to know if it was bird seed.
My family eats many types of vegetables, including greens. Just today they had turnip greens in their soup. Shh, don’t tell them. I chop the greens finely and they think it is spinach, basil or other seasoning,
Now don’t get me wrong. We are far from perfect in our diet. My family does it sweets. Though not at home. However I do my best to keep junk food out the house. How can I complain that my son does not eat his dinner when he comes home and eats 3 sticks of celery, an apple, a pint of grape tomatoes and then makes himself  a “tortilla pizza” There is no junk in the house, so he can’t eat it.
I certainly don’t claim to eat perfect all the time but staying away from processed food has certainly made a difference in our health and our food budget.
How do you include Real Food in your family’s meals?


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