What exactly ARE Real Foods??

With the sounds of March Madness filling every inch of my house (if you know my husband, you can only imagine just how LOUD it gets in here), I come to you with a mini post on what Real Foods are to me.

One of the first things I researched when I started on this new phase of my nutritional life was, ‘what exactly does it mean to eat Real Foods?’ Because I had no freaking idea. But luckily for us, we live in the age of the interwebz and I could just hop on Google and research until my heart’s content.
Which I did.
For days.
I stayed up late reading in bed, blog after blog, on Real Foods, Clean Eating, and Traditional Food diets. I was a mad woman and I think I was about a day away from Husband holding an intervention, when I finally stopped before my eyeballs fell out (Seriously. My eyes are still dry from laser surgery and they get REALLY dry from reading, especially on my iPad mini (aka BFF), and they almost really did dry up in my head. Not really. But close.)

From all my obsessive researching, I found that the truth is, Real Food can be different for everyone, based on their life circumstances, preferences, and convictions. I looked into what several bloggers defined as Real Foods for themselves and found that I probably incorporate a little bit from all of them based on my own research and convictions.

So here is the gist of my definition of Real Foods:

First, Real Foods is not the same as Whole Foods, Paleo, or Clean Eating although they all have similarities. Real Foods to me is, however, synonymous to Traditional Foods. So when I say Real Foods, I am also saying Traditional Foods and visa versa. Got it? Great!

Now that we have the terminology clear, what do the terms mean?

Real, Traditional Food means eating foods that are unprocessed, chemical free, well nourished (for animal products) and as close to it’s natural state (like right from the animal with minimal human meddling) as possible. (Just to be clear, I am not talking about the Raw Food Movement. I cook my food. A lot. Like everyday.)

So…let’s break this down.

-I eat food from all food groups…meat, dairy, whole grains, breads, vegetables, fruits, nuts, fats, and sugar…just not processed versions. (This is where Real, Traditional Foods differ from some of the other eating plans I mentioned.)
-We eat MEAT. We are in NO way vegetarians, although we do eat meatless meals if Husband isn’t paying too close attention to the meal plan. 🙂 When we do eat meat, we are striving for organic, grass-fed, pasture raised meat. (This is where the properly nourished part comes in). We try to know where our meat comes from.
-For Seafood, sustainable, wild caught is best. This includes canned seafood.
-We eat whole, full fat dairy like whole, low temperature pasteurized milk, organic whole milk yogurt, organic sour cream, whole milk cheese and raw cheese (if I can find it). I love cheese. I don’t think I could ever sign on for any eating plan that doesn’t include cheese. And I’ve been lactose intolerant since practically the womb, so you know I love it if I’m willing to throw digestive caution to the wind to eat it.
-We love eggs. Eggs are the best. Eggs have gotten a bad rap, but they are awesome! We try for organic, pastured eggs. And we eat the whole egg. Not just the egg white.
-We eat healthy fats and unprocessed oils like butter, coconut oil, and olive oil. For a cheat sheet on healthy vs processed fats, check out this printable from Weed ’em and Reap on my Pinterest Board.
-We eat sugar and use other natural sweeteners in our cooking and baking. Good examples of unprocessed sugars and sweeteners include Organic raw cane sugar, coconut sugar, local honey, real maple syrup, and pure stevia.
-Produce should be local and organic if you can. Use the Dirty Dozen, Clean Fifteen Rule for reference and do the best you can with what you have. Eat lots of produce! It’s so delicious!
-Just like cheese, I don’t think I could ever give up bread. We eat whole grains, including bread, pizza crust, brown rice, whole grain pasta and other baked goods. I use Whole Wheat flour, Whole Wheat Pastry flour, and occasionally White, Unbleached and Unbromated, Whole Wheat flour.
-Snacks. Nuts, dried fruit, veggies, fresh fruit, cheese, humus, guacamole, edamame, homemade corn chips, and homemade crackers all make great Real Food snacks. See? There are lots of delicious snacks in the Real Food World! And they are a lot more filling than most snack junk (that I used to eat by the pound!)
-Packaged Foods. I will occasionally included packaged foods like pretzels and organic cereal. If this is the case, the best rule of thumb when looking at a package is to look for no more than 5 to 6 ingredients and they should all be ingredients you can pronounce, know what it is, and could pick it up from the store and make something with it yourself. Believe it or not, there are actually quite a few packaged products that meet the criteria. You will see them on my cheat sheet shopping lists. (P.S. Pretzel Slims from Trader Joe’s are freaking awesome!)
-Desserts!! We eat dessert (and dark chocolate. Yes to dark chocolate!)! We love it. We make ice cream, cookies, brownies, pies, and other luscious things. Notice the word, make. Yes, Real Food desserts often require learning and making yourself. But it’s totally worth it. Because a life without desserts is just…depressing.

All in all, Real Foods means I am not scared of things like BUTTER and BACON and WHOLE EGGS. YUM.

This is how I eat 80% of the time. I employ the 80/20 when it comes to Real Foods, because let’s face it, I live in REALITY and reality is full of processed foods I have no control over. So the other 20% of the time I chill out max and relax all cool. Just like The Fresh Prince. What does that mean? (Well first, refresh yourself on the musical genius that is the Fresh Prince Theme Song and then keep reading…)
-I got out to eat. I eat what I like at a restaurant and let go that it may not be 100% clean, unprocessed food.
-I eat birthday cake and white crust pizza and Girl Scout Thin Mints, when I’m out and about in the world.
-I enjoy parties and family gatherings without agonizing over the menu.
-Husband eats Goldfish crackers and cheez-its and chicken wings and I am okay with it. Like I said before, he is so incredibly supportive that I don’t want to ever impose my convictions on him.

Why do I let go and eat these things 20% of the time? Because an ‘all or nothing’ attitude is a recipe for disaster and discouragement. And because the turmoil that it causes to agonize whether or not to eat them is stupid and doesn’t change the fact that when it’s in my control, I can choose wholesome, Real Foods. That gives food way more control over me than is healthy. I’ve noticed, however, since starting eating Real Foods, those foods don’t appeal to me like they used to and there is little to no turmoil or agonizing when I’m presented with the option to eat them. Those Goldfish have been in the pantry for the last two weeks and normally, it would be like they are taunting me, begging me to eat them with their little fishy mouths, but since I changed my eating, it’s like their little lips have been silenced. I’d much rather have some nuts and call it a day. Awesome how God helps armor our hearts against old demons when we decide to walk His way.

Okay friends, I think that’s about it. In the end, you have to talk with God and decide between you and Him what your food convictions are and go from there. If you decide to change your eating, in whatever way you and God choose, be sure you are doing it for the right reasons. As a woman, I can confidently say that for 99% of my life I only strived to lose weight so I could look a certain way or fit the world’s mold of what an attractive woman looks like. It ended in heartbreak and failure every time. God wants us to be healthy for His reasons, not the world’s. God desires us to be good stewards of the bodies He has given us, and to have ‘life to the full.’ He doesn’t care about appearance or dress size or skinny jeans or bikini bodies. God cares about the beauty of our hearts and spirits. God says in 1 Samuel 16:7 “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” How beautiful a truth this is. In a world that will shun a woman for a whole myriad of physical and outward reasons, God sees inside and looks at her heart. I don’t know about you, but I want a heart that is gorgeous in the eyes of my Lord. That’s my extreme makeover, not what I see in the mirror. And I know, that when my God looks at me, He sees me through the eyes of his Son, and, in Him, I am the most glorious and beautiful woman I could ever be.

Cheat sheets to help preserve your shopping sanity!

As promised, here are my ‘Cheat Sheet’ Shopping Lists for the local grocery stores in my area. If you have these stores in your area too, you can use these as a general guide as to what to buy. However, remember that everyone may have a different definition of Real Food and my food may not be foods you would choose.

If you want to understand how I define Real Food, check in tomorrow for my mini post about what Real Food means to me and what I look for in Real Food products!

Since I’m just starting out and still learning, some foods may fall into the ‘Good’ Category, some in the ‘Better’ and some in the ‘Best.’ I’m working on making it so I’m eating entirely in the ‘Better’ and ‘Best’ Categories, but I’m still learning what and where to buy so it will take some time.

The way I did my lists was to determine what foods at each store met my Real Foods criteria and who had the best prices. If they met both the Real Food and Best Price criteria, they went on the list for that store. I did not list every possible Real Food item you can get at each store, because it would get super redundant. I only listed what I would buy from each store based on my research. So if you see something on one list, but not another, it does not mean you cannot get that item at that store, it simply means I found it cheaper somewhere else (or it’s not something we buy! We have likes and dislikes, ya know?? For example. I detest bananas. You will NEVER see a banana on my list or in any recipe. EVER. They are evil.)

I did not list all the potential organic produce you can find at each store either because prices vary regularly and where I buy also depends on the quantity I need any given week. For the most part, I will be trying to buy my produce locally from the Farmer’s Market as often as possible. I also will be using the Dirty Dozen, Clean Fifteen rule when purchasing produce at the grocery store. I listed all Clean Fifteen produce you can purchase at Aldi, and left the Dirty Dozen to Trader Joe’s, Wegmans, or BJ’s depending on who has the best price that week. If you want to check out the Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen lists, click here.

On to the Lists!!

Since I am trying my best to stick to a budget, my first investigation was Real Foods at Aldi, since they have the most competitive prices around. Here’s the list I have compiled for Aldi:

Next I scoped out Trader Joe’s (who is owned by the same parent company as Aldi). Trader Joe’s is new to my area and is known for it’s Organic, Health conscious products. After talking to one of the Trader Joe’s employees, I learned that they also do not use any GMO’s, or artificial colorings of any kinds in their products. Not all their products are organic, but many are and the majority of their products are made with natural ingredients. They do their best to only sell products that are produced using sustainable and humane farming measures as well.

After Trader Joe’s I headed to Wegmans. For those of you not in the North East, Wegmans is like the grocery store you would find in Heaven, if Heaven needed a grocery store. I would 100% shop at Wegmans all of the time if I could afford it. They are not outrageously priced, but they are still a bit out-priced for our budget. Especially after shopping at Aldi for many years, it’s really hard to leave Wegmans with three small bags for the price of a cart load of Aldi’s groceries. Wegmans also has the largest and widest selection of Real Foods, they just don’t always have the best price. But like I said in my last post, if you can only shop at one store, Wegmans is your best bet to get everything you need in one trip. My list for Wegmans is significantly shorter because I do the majority of my shopping elsewhere for budget’s sake.

My list is almost equally short for BJ’s wholesale club because their products are all sold in bulk quantities, and as a family of two, we don’t often need such large quantities unless the product can last for some time. You do need a membership to shop at BJ’s so keep that in mind when compiling your store lists. BJ’s has really been expanding their organic and natural products so I will continue to look for new items. Here is what I’ve found so far:

Lastly, I stopped at Feel Rite Fresh Market, a local organic and natural food store chain. I did not do a ton of browsing there since I had already been to four stores already. They are a smaller chain, so they don’t have the most competitive prices, but they do have decent organic produce prices and some competitive dairy prices. I stopped here for my eggs. My friend Meg tipped me off to their pasture raised eggs. They were the only store that actually carried pasture raised eggs, as opposed to organic, cage free eggs. I opted for pasture raised but the implications as to the chicken’s life and grazing are very different than simply cage free. I am hoping that I can get my eggs at the Farmer’s Market from here on out because thus far, they will still have the best price for pasture raised eggs. But Feel Rite will certainly do in a pinch! I did not get anything else from there so, alas, there is no list.

Okay folks, that’s all I got. Good luck shopping and try not to strangle a random stranger in the meat aisle when you are feeling frustrated to have to work so hard just to eat what God intended. Take deep breaths and remember that the narrow way has so many amazing rewards.

Like ice cream. And the peace that comes from knowing you are doing the best you can for your body.

And since it’s Friday night and I like to party, here’s a hilarious gift to send you off on your weekend in style. I present, the owl and cat who are friends and like to play together in adorable and amazing ways. Enjoy.

Cat and Owl, Friends Forever!

The trials, the tears, and the chocolate…and some hope left over.

So, as promised, here is my BIG post on Real Food shopping! (I know I promised to post this earlier but ‘tomorrow’ turned into three days later and well, here we are.)

(P.S. If you are not sure what I mean when I say Real Food, look out for my mini post tomorrow, I’m making to explain what Real Food means to me (it’s different for everyone)!)

So…truth time. Real Food shopping is hard. On Monday, when I did my first real big Real Food shop, I thought it might kill me. Seriously. After going to the third store, I called Husband and the conversation went like this:

Me (dead serious): I am going to die here.
Husband (because he’s used to this): Stop being crazy.
Me: No. Really. I have already been out for 3 hours and I still have two more stores to go to. If I die here, and I probably will, I just want you know that I have decided I don’t want you to remarry; I want you to mourn me forever.
Husband: Okay, honey, whatever you want.

Then I bought dark chocolate truffles and stress-ate two of them in the parking lot.

The reason why I’m telling you this is to prepare you to know that if you try to eliminate processed foods and decide to pursue a Real Food lifestyle, shopping will be really hard at first. And it’s totally normal to feel like you are the guy in 127 hours and be willing to gnaw your arm off if it means you can get out of the freaking grocery store.

Why is it so hard? I think I’ve figured this out after my ordeal on Monday. It’s hard because the world’s way of what is convenient, easy, fast, and cheap is 100% dominant in our culture, especially in the world of food. It has become the norm. So when you are trying to shop for Real Foods, you are searching on the outskirts of the mainstream. You are looking for a needle in a haystack of processed, convenient, man made foods. I totally understand why people give up on Real Foods or don’t even try. They are not lazy; the world, and especially the world of food in America, has made it extremely hard and extremely expensive to find and eat Real Foods. But not impossible. Let me say that again: It is NOT impossible. You have to be willing to do some work, especially in the beginning, and get creative. But you know what? God has never, ever pretended that His way was the easy way. In fact, He called it the narrow way. After I realized this on Monday, I was comforted to realize that the resistance and difficulty I encountered trying to shop for Real Foods was a sign that it was the ‘narrow way.’ God’s way. And God’s way richly rewards the effort we put forth to get there. So I plunge onward!

The main reason why I took so long on Monday was because I was doing a sort of ‘survey’ of our local grocery stores to a) determine what Real Food they sell b) where the heck it is in the store c) how much it costs and d) how does their price compare to other stores. The last one was the most important because Real Food eating can get very pricey if you shop indescriminantly and don’t compare prices. Which we cannot afford. Yes, it will take more work but financial freedom with budgeting is, like, the best thing EVER and I am determined to make this work within the confines of our budget. I will not be denied.

I prepared myself for the long haul: I hydrated, wore comfortable shoes, brought my list and meal plans, and ate a good lunch. I cleared my whole afternoon. I was ready. I went to the following stores in our local area:

BJ’s
Wegmans
Feel Rite
Trader Joe’s
Aldi

Insane, right?

Yes. It totally was.

But I learned a lot. Here is what I learned and I hope by sharing this, you can avoid eating truffles in a grocery store parking lot while planning your funeral.

#1 Not all health food is created equal. I’m learning a lot about the differences between all these health food buzz words, like organic, cage free, pastured, pasture raised, natural, fair trade, etc etc. What I learned is this: Organic does not always mean healthy or clean or real. Organic can be just as processed and unhealthy as regular old man made foods. I am especially learning this about dairy products, including eggs. Organic, cage-free eggs may not be what they seem. In fact, a farm can say their eggs are cage-free even if that only means the chicken has a tiny little ‘crate’ to peck around in rather than a giant chicken mega cage contraption like in Napoleon Dynamite. Not what you were picturing, most likely. Also, organic milk is often ultra-pasteurized. I never realized this. If you look at the expiration date of organic, ultra pasteurized milk, it can be even up to two months after you buy it! GROSS. Read about more of the creepiness involved in ultra-pasteurization here. Additionally, organic packaged foods can contain unclean oils and processed ingredients, just in organic forms. So all in all, you can’t just grab something that says organic off the shelf and trust it’s the best for you. The key is LEARNING AS MUCH AS YOU CAN about what you are eating and the processes it took to get from the farm to your cart and learning to read labels. Not for calories and nutrition facts, but for ingredients. I am learning that looking for low-temperature pasteurized milk is much better (raw is best but it’s currently illegal for grocery stores to sell raw milk), local, pastured/pasture-raised eggs, are a better choice than organic, cage-free, non-local eggs, grass-fed butter is preferable to grain-fed organic butter, and grass-fed or pastured meat is preferable to organic meat that is fed an organic, grain diet. If you can get organic, pastured or grass-fed meat, or raw butter, or dairy, well then you’ve hit the jackpot! The best way to understand all this is to subscribe to Weed ’em and Reap’s mailing list and get her FREE, easy to understand printable on all this information. It is her ‘Good, Better, Best’ Printable and it really helps break all of this down for you. It also talks about produce, sweetners, pantry and fridge items, fats, grains, nuts, and beans. Her philosophy is “Doing the best you can with what you have.” I completely agree. While you may not be able to hit every box in the ‘Best’ column, you can try to hit as many as you can within your access, abilities, and budget. That is what I’m trying to do.

#2 You most likely cannot get everything you need, at the best price, at one store. This is where the work comes in. I have yet to find one store that has everything I need without killing my budget. The frugal in me just cannot allow myself to buy something at one store if I KNOW it’s cheaper at another. However, since we primarily shopped at Aldi prior to switching to Real Foods, I am used to shopping at two stores because Aldi doesn’t carrry everything we may need on a given week.
If I can get my Real Food Shopping down to two stores, I would be a very happy girl. I will say that shopping at one store is a big enough ordeal for some people, especially if little ones are factored into the picture, and if that is the case, I recommend Wegmans. I have yet to come across a product I could not find at Wegmans, but you may pay more for it than somewhere else. If your time is more valuable than a few dollars, then Wegmans is the way to go.

#3 The real way to save money is by exploring non-traditional grocery options, especially for meat and dairy. We are looking into several of these for ourselves, including Wholesharing, buying bulk meat directly from local farms, and co-ops.

Wholeshare is a great website where groups of friends and family can buy directly from sellers in large quantities to save money. One person ‘runs’ the group and receives the delivery. Then it is split up between the group based on orders placed. They offer a large selection of produce, meat, dairy and pantry items. You can get pastured eggs, grass-fed butter, organic, pastured meat, dry beans, clean oils, and baking supplies. You split large quantities of these items with your group and reap in the savings. You often do have to split the items yourself, for example if you order a 25lb bag of beans, you will have to separate it yourself between your group members, but other items already are packaged in ‘split friendly’ ways.
Husband and I are most excited about buying our meat in bulk directly from local farms. We have explored options for both grass-fed beef and pasture raised pork and chicken. We are most likely splitting a 1/4 cow and a 1/2 hog with some friends in the next few weeks. (PRAISE JESUS we bought a standing freezer a couple years ago! I can’t wait to fill it with MEEEEAT. Pounds and pounds of meat. And homemade ice cream.) If you don’t have a supplemental freezer, you can still do this but you would really need to split your quantities with someone or you would run out of room. A 1/4 cow is about 90lbs of meat and a 1/2 hog is about 80lbs. So we are looking at taking home 45lbs of beef and 25-40lbs of pork (if we split 2 or 3 ways). The best part about this is you get delicious cuts of meat that I was always too cheap to buy before. We mostly eat ground turkey, boneless pork chops, and the occasional steak or roast (from the Omaha Steak Box my parents gave us for Christmas!). With this purchase we will be getting ground beef; sirloin, ribeye, t-bone, porter house, rib, round and beef steaks; short ribs, chuck, sirloin, and rump roasts, stew beef, brisket, and the bones to make amazing broth. From our hog we will get spare ribs, loins, shoulder and picnic roasts, boneless or bone in chops, pork sausage, fresh hams, bacon, hocks, and stew bones. I can’t tell you the last time I bought anything but basic pork chops. BORING. Well, not anymore! Also, did I mention BACON???? If you are unsure of how to go about doing this or are skeptical about how this actually SAVES you money, not only over the store’s organic meat but even over regular, basic meat, check out this awesome post by Weed ’em and Reap where she breaks down the buying process completely and gives you full cost calculations! It’s awesome. And true.
The farm we found for our pork also sells whole, pasture raised chickens, and eggs which we will also be looking into purchasing from them.

Sidebar.
Eggs. Can I just say that good, pastured eggs are so freaking hard to find and expensive that I seriously thought about just buying a freaking chicken?? I had to go to my fifth store just for eggs. If anyone owns a chicken and has extra eggs, I will buy them from you. PLEASE. End Sidebar.

You can also check out co-ops and community gardens in your area for milk, eggs, and produce. We haven’t looked into this as much but I know they can save a lot of money.

#4 FARMERS MARKETS ARE THE BOMB!! Aside from meat and dairy, creativity is needed to make the most of your produce purchasing. Organic produce can be very costly but just as I said before, just because it says organic doesn’t mean it’s best. I took the time to look at a lot of organic produce while shopping and most came from Mexico. Part of this is because we refuse to shop seasonally and demand our strawberries whenever we darn well want strawberries, so stores are forced to get their produce from non-local (and even out of country) sources to meet our demands. Mexico is an awful long way to where I live in New York (no, not New York City. There are other places in the state, you know), so I don’t know how I feel about the freshness of produce that has come from south of the border. Additionally, I love the idea of supporting local farmers. The best place to do that is at the Farmer’s Market. (Not to mention, shopping seasonally saves money! Because my produce didn’t have to take a plane to get to me, it costs less!). By going to Farmer’s Markets, you can talk directly to the farmers about their products and farming practices. Many small farms can’t afford the cost of becoming USDA certified organic, but if you talk with them directly, many practice safe, healthy, and traditional farming practices, even if they can’t label themselves organic. (Another money saver, because produce that is organic tends to be much higher priced – probably to make up for the cost it took to be certified!). Some farmers even have greenhouses which allow for growing during all seasons, so you can even get some of your favorite single season items all year long! You can also usually get local eggs, milk, meat, and other products, like honey, at the market. Our area is very fortunate to have a bunch of great, local markets and I even found a market that is open all year long! Which is amazing because our winters tend to last about 900 8 months, here. That’s a long time to go without access to fresh, local produce. I am going to check it out this Tuesday with a friend and I will let you know what I discover!
The next step up in bravery when it comes to produce is to grow your own. I am planning on attempting this come springtime. I say attempting because I have the most notorious green black thumb in all the land and have literally killed every plant that has ever come into our home. Every. Last. One. With some help from my naughty cats, but they really didn’t have to do much. I am hoping that growing vegetables will be different…??? I am starting with some easy plants and lots of help from my sister and my mom, who is an INCREDIBLE gardner, so maybe there is hope. Either way, pray for me and my poor little victims, I mean veggies.

#5 If you can make it yourself-do it! Many of my favorite foods were full of processed ingredients so they became no-no’s when I switched to Real Foods. But the good news is, you can usually make them yourself – better tasting and cheaper! (Cha-Ching!) The main cost is stocking up on staples and baking supplies. But once you do that, you can make homemade granola, crackers, bread, granola bars, pizza, tacos, ice cream, tortilla chips and cookies for a fraction of the cost to buy them. (Enter Kitchen Aid Mixer, aka BFF FOR LIFE.) There are so many great recipes (some of which I’ll be sharing this weekend!!) to recreate our favorite treats. Real Food does not mean boring food. All hope is not lost. (Sorry, but I can’t guarantee a recipe to make your own cheese puffs. I think you’re on your own for that one.) Check out my Pinterest account for recipes I have found, under my ‘Ditching the Processed’ board.

#6 Successful Real Food Shopping is possible. Seriously. Just don’t be like me and bite off more than you can chew by spending 4 hours at 5 different stores in one day. Plus use what I learned to help you when you get started. It is expensive in the beginning, but that is mostly the cost of replacing processed items you no longer want to use and stocking up on staples that will last a long time. Once those initial costs are taken care of, it will get better. I am finally done replacing and stocking up on staples so I am hoping to see a difference in my next shopping bill. Also, once you get the hang of what to buy, what you like, where it is and who has it for cheaper, it will be a snap to shop. Part of the adjustment period that makes it so difficult is just learning what to buy and where it is. I don’t know about you, but I used to have a grocery routine. I knew exactly what to get, what I liked, and exactly where it was in the store. I would pop in and out in no time. Now I’m re-learning. Once I figure it out, I’ll be back to ‘popping’ in no time! To help get you started, I made up some shopping list cheat sheets that help you know what real foods are available at the stores I checked out. I will be doing a ‘tandem’ post with those lists after this post so that your eyeballs don’t fall out trying to read all this in one post.

Okay. So there you have it. It is totally possible to eat and cook Real Foods on a budget. It just takes hard work and determination to walk the ‘narrow way.’ If you decide to try it for yourself, I hope that any of this rambling helps you make it through better than I did!

Look out for my post later tonight with my shopping list cheat sheets! For now, I’m off on a date ‘afternoon’ with Husband to buy pants and eat tacos. Super romantic. Actually, to me, tacos are always romantic.

Happy Shopping!

Molly

P.S. Here is actual photographic evidence that successful Real Food Shopping is possible. My haul from my mega shopping extravaganza:

Plus the world’s most adorable butter dish:

SPECIAL DELIVERY!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT’S HERE!! IT’S HERE!!!! IT’S HERE!!!! My special secret package finally arrived!!

I think I practically did this when the mail came (after, of course, the Fed Ex guy totally faked me out by driving past without stopping, causing me to start hyperventilating and then try to call Fed Ex to desperately tell them to make the man come back, but then he came back).

Anyone else watch cartoons, that were made specifically for toddlers, well into 6th grade? (…crickets…)No? Just me?

(This is awkward.)

Anyways….here it is!!!!

Just kidding!! That is just Sebastian performing his routine inspection of anything and everything that comes into our house (people included).

My package passed inspection so I could finally open it and behold the wonder that lay inside:

NOW do you understand why I’m so FREAKING EXCITED??????? AHHHHH! I could dance happy dances and sing happy songs for all eternity!

Not to mention, I not only got to purchase this beautiful gift from heaven, but I got a FANTASTIC deal thanks to my dear friend Meghan who tipped me off to a sale Kohl’s was having.

I love Kohl’s. Why didn’t I believe all the people who told me Kohl’s was a magical land full of beautiful bounty and treasure? They were NOT lying. (But for the sake of budget sanctity, I should probably not go there all too often.)

Because I can’t stop staring at this gorgeous vision on my countertop, I know you want to see it in all it’s out-of-box glory, so here is a montage I created for us all to stare at:

Oh, the dreaminess…

Oh, the culinary possibilities!!!

I cannot wait to begin using this magical tool! I already have visions of home made breads, waffles, cookies, pizza dough, pie crusts, muffins, ice creams, pasta and on and on and on and on for all eternity. Which is probably when I will actually leave my kitchen because I will be having the best time ever creating culinary treats for all to share!

This is seriously the best tool someone trying to eliminate processed foods could ever get. The attachment options literally allow you to make your own ANYTHING, so you know it is wholesome and clean. They have an attachment guide that is bigger than a phone book and they even have a grain mill, sausage stuffer, and food grinder. I could mill my own grain and grind my own meat for pete’s sake! Did you hear me? GRIND MY OWN MEAT. And stuff it into sausages. Now that’s hardcore.

While I can’t do any of that yet, without the proper attachments, I do have the most generous and amazing friend in the world who is giving, yes GIVING, me her brand new ice cream attachment for the mixer because they never use it!!! I could pee I’m so excited. (But I won’t. I promise. It’s messy and gross.)

On the docket this week to be made using my new BFF is belgian waffles, whole wheat pizza dough, dumplings and ICE CREAM (obv). LET THE TASTING BEGIN!!!

This weekend I will be doing a ‘Weekend Recipe Update’ Double Feature to share the real food recipes we’ve tried the past couple weeks and the truth about how they turned out…dun dun dunnnnnn. No really! They were really good (mostly…). And I will share how my new friend performed on her first tasks!

But up next in the world of my crazy thoughts is my Real Food Shopping experiences thus far. I have recovered enough emotionally to share it with you now. The Mixer’s arrival helped me heal from yesterday’s 4 hour ordeal. I will be sharing that will you guys tomorrow! It’s not all crying and stress eating chocolate, I promise. There is good stuff I’m learning too.

Okay well that’s all for now guys! I’m off to stare at my new friend until bible study.

Laters!

Molly

Meal Planning INSANITY! and the app that has taken over my life…

SO MUCH has been going on since my last update, friends! I have so much to tell you! Mostly insane stories of meal planning, shopping, and exhaustedly eating dark chocolate truffles in the grocery store parking lot.

The main reason I haven’t been writing is because I have been farting around with this new INCREDIBLE meal planning app that my amazing co-worker, Simone (shout out, what, what!), found and told me about. It’s called Menu Planner and it has SOOO much potential to be a full blown meal planning wizard genius that it gives me that Christmas Morning excitement in my stomach! BUT, setting it up is super labor intensive if you want to fully utilize all it’s features (and you are super OCD like I am). So I have been working on it since Thursday, inputting recipes from my own collection and favorite online recipes, as well as creating my ‘virtual pantry’ in the app.

Yes, you read that correctly. This app allows you to create your own virtual pantry within the app so it will track what ingredients you have on hand for meal planning and automatically add items to your grocery list when you are running low (and YOU get to decide exactly what ‘running low’ means for each item – for example, if you usually only use something for a recipe, you can set it so the app only adds it to your list when you completely run out and need it for an upcoming recipe. But, if you use something regularly like bread or eggs, you can set it to add to your list when you are down to 3 eggs or 4 slices of bread! It will calculate and take in to account how much to need for the week’s recipes too!) GENIUS.

You can also manually input recipes or import them directly from websites. It literally finds and pulls the recipe info off the site and imports it into the correct format for you. Or if it’s not a traditional recipe site like AllRecipes, you can manually select the recipe info off the webpage and import it just like that. DOUBLE GENIUS.

As if that wasn’t amazing enough, the app can also serve as a food journal if you are into tracking your meals, which I kind of am right now so I have a record of the new foods I’m trying. You can simply add what you ate for each meal as a note for that meal on the day’s calendar. So it’s not necessary to do full blown menu planning for every meal of the day if you want a journal of your meals. I don’t know about you, but planning dinner is enough of a stretch some times. (What am I ever going to do once we have kids??) You can also choose to have the app show your calories and/or point totals for each meal or the entire day if you are tracking your food in that way. (I have selected to have those options turned off because I am trying to steer away from that as I re-learn how to eat real, unprocessed foods.) TRIPLE GENIUS.

You can meal plan and generate a shopping list for a day, week, month or more, so you can maximize your shopping, buy in bulk, and save time. It literally works for whatever schedule or needs you have. The Shopping list tells you every item you need for all your upcoming meals, including quantities (so you don’t have to guess how much chicken you meant when you wrote ‘chicken’ on the list), and you can quickly add any other item you need that may not be on a recipe for that week, like breakfast foods, snacks etc. The list will also tell you if each item is included in your upcoming meal plans so you can decide to opt out of buying something unnecessary if you budget dictates. (which mine did this week!)

Speaking of Budgets, you can also specify which stores you shop at and input the price (and location) of each item at different stores so you can try to always find the best price. AND if a price is entered for an item, the app automatically keeps tracks and calculates the total of your shopping list so you can budget before you even get to the store. QUADRUPLE SUPER WIZARD GENIUS.

I don’t even think I have discovered all this app can do but from what I know so far, it’s about to get all Hogwarts up in my kitchen!

Best $2.99 I ever spent, ladies and gentlemen. I realize that this may be way too much for some of you and I’m a super technology dork (times 12) so feel free to stick with your own system. I am just so excited for the future potential to make shopping, budgeting and meal planning so much easier!

I have only inputted about half of my recipes so far but have been able to make a great start at meal planning with those. I also went shopping today using my list and used the receipts to input prices for future shopping, price comparisons, and budgeting. Because let me tell you, this real food shopping on a budget is tricky. But I’m not going to get into that now, as I need some time to emotionally recover before I can discuss it openly. (See earlier where I mentioned stress eating truffles in the grocery store parking lot).

Despite my shopping frustrations, I do really like the meal planning strategy I’m using, in conjunction with the Menu Planner app, which I totally got from Weed ’em and Reap. Again, she’s my hilarious real foods guru. Her take on meal planning is so smart! Read her post in the link above to see what I mean.

Did you read it yet?

Seriously, read it. I want her to get the credit, not me, because I totally stole it from her.

I am using her methods with a few tweaks to fit our family. For example, I am hoping to change this, but we don’t cook a lot of seafood (yet!) so I adapted Thursdays to Seafood and Grilling Day because Adam loves to grill and Thursdays are his day off. Also, Friday is our date nights so I made that an Eat Out, Get Takeout, or Leftovers (for a budget friendly at home date) Day. And then, Saturday became our Quick and Easy/Pizza Day. It totally works! And the app allows me to tag all my recipes into custom categories, so I can tag recipes for each Day and then browse using those categories for meal planning. AWESOME.

If you are totally lost at this point, it’s because you tried to cheat and haven’t read Weed ’em and Reap’s post on meal planning. I swear, it’s short and sweet and totally smart. READ IT.

Here’s my meal plan for this week:

I’m still tweaking it, but you get the idea. WIZARDRY! (okay I’ll stop with all the Harry Potter references now.)

I’m focusing on real food, wholesome, unprocessed ingredients and not much else. I’m not following a specific diet like Whole Foods or Paleo. I include meat, dairy, whole grains, desserts, snacks, and lot of deliciousness! I’m still learning all about the world of unprocessed foods, so if you are a guru yourself, don’t be alarmed if something on my meal plan is not 100% unprocessed-I’m learning!

ANYWAYS,

I will post soon about my real food shopping nightmares and why there is hope for the future despite how I feel about it today.

And ALSO, my surprise that is coming in the mail got delayed by stupid winter storm apocalypse so it won’t be here until tomorrow. BUT I’M SO EXCITED TO SHOW YOU WHAT IT IS WHEN IT GETS HERE. SO EXCITED!

Before I go, I just want to say how much I appreciate all the feedback, support and interest in my blog that I have received! I did NOT expect this response and I’m so grateful! It’s been amazing and it makes me blush on a regular basis. I love you all my silly little readers! Thank you for reading and come back to laugh more about my life!

XOXO
Molly

P.S. I will do my best to respond quickly to anyone who has sent me a personal message or question, but please have patience with me, I’m already bad at responding to calls, texts, messages, emails etc (just ask my mom!) but I’m trying to get better! Keep them coming! I love them even if it doesn’t seem that way right now!

God vs. The World, a battle of food and failures

Hey kiddos! How’s life?

We are currently experiencing a ThunderBlizzard so I have a SNOW DAY!! Anyone who works in the schools will tell you that Snow Days are WAY better as adults than as kids. #1 You get paid. HELLO??? #2 You don’t have to spend any time catching up on the homework you should have done the night before (who else totally did this as a kid?) #3 Sleeping in as an adult has a sweetness that it never had when you were a kid. Plus you have time to blog and what not. Win, win. (I will say this probably changes once you have kids of your own. Then they are also home and there goes your sleeping in and blogging and sanity. I’ve been told the ideal situation is to work in a different district than where your kids attend school and your district closes and their’s doesn’t! I mean…No, you totally want to spend the day with your kids. You really do. You don’t desperately need a day off where you can pee in peace. Truthfully I have no clue since I’m not a parent so I’ll shut up now before I offend someone by pretending to be exhausted by my non-existent kids.) Either way, I put on my productive comfy clothes and did some laundry, am blogging, and have plans to make some homemade granola and granola bars later this afternoon.

(Is it just me or do other people have lazy comfy clothes and productive comfy clothes? To me, if I put on my oversized, mens sweatpants and a sweatshirt, I just know nothing productive is going to take place that day. I won’t even make it off the couch. BUT if I put on my yoga pants and a regular comfy shirt, there is a much greater possibility that I may accomplish something productive. No? Just me? Okay then.)

So, update on my life: my real food-ing is going awesome! I love how I feel and how much energy I have. I have not taken a mid-day nap since I started eating clean! Which is awesome (not that I don’t love napping but it really interferes with any sort of productivity) because I seriously seemed to fall into a post-lunch nap at least a couple days a week before I switched to real food. I LOVE not counting calories or obsessing over portions and just eating until I feel satisfied and then stopping. That is something I have never been able to do before. Stopping after I’m satisfied. And the best part is, I am not stressing about not counting every morsel of food that goes into my mouth because I am satisfied with so much LESS. By eating nutrient rich, real, traditional foods, I am finally feeling satisfied after a meal. I’m not obsessing over when I can eat again because I don’t feel truly satisfied and I can enjoy the fullness I feel in the moment. It’s awesome. AWE-SOME.

Just to be clear, I am not knocking counting calories or portions at all. I was able to lose 53 pounds that way! It can work for sure. I have just come to realize that there is no one eating plan for everyone and what works for me may not work for you and your body. I truly respect everyone’s individual journey to health. Seriously. I just realize now that counting calories was only another facet of my obsession with food and by fostering a system where every calorie counted, it encouraged me to cut calories where ever I could so I could eat more, not better. So I picked up anything that said Light, Low Fat, Diet, 100 Calories, Zero Calories etc. Which meant that the majority of what I was eating was overly processed, chemically laden ‘foods’ that are so far from what God intended us to eat that I’m surprised our bodies can even recognize them. (I’m starting to think they can’t.)

I see now that three years ago when I started walking this road with God, God opened my eyes to see the sin of my eating and poor stewardship of the body He had given me, and I was free to get healthy, but I tried to walk God’s way to health by eating the world’s food, using the world’s ways. Not His. That’s a recipe for failure. We can’t try to walk with God but take the world’s path to get to our destination. The world’s ways often work for a while but eventually leave us unfulfilled, unsatisfied, frustrated, and unhappy. I found myself feeling all those things these last few months. That is how the world lures us in. The world’s ways promise success and happiness…until they don’t and you need to find another thing from the world to make you feel good again. A new diet plan, a new type of food to avoid, a new cleanse to try, a new weight loss group to join. “If only I tried this…I would make it this time.” They often leave us feeling like we are the failure, not the path we chose to take. The world’s ways are tricky like that. They never seem to get a bad reputation for the flaws in their plans, we always seem to get the blame for not trying hard enough, not wanting it enough, not choosing the right things, not being good enough.

That’s why God’s way is the only way to go. We still have to do our part. We still have to make choices and want it for ourselves and try hard when temptation strikes, but God’s way keeps it’s promise. God’s way always fulfills, satisfies, and brings lasting victory. God’s way give us the strength we need to make the right choices, try hard even when we don’t feel like it, and provides a way out when temptation strikes (1 Corinthians 10:13). The world, it seems, wants us to fail so that we will feel the need to buy the newest workout program, subscribe to the newest diet tip service, or whatever else they can get us to say yes and open our wallet to. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the world’s ways. I’m tired of the promises that this (insert product/diet/program) will be the key to my weight loss and health…only until the next version comes out and then they change their minds and say “no wait, THIS one is really it!” I want God’s plan, God’s way, God’s help, God’s strength, God’s encouragement, God’s victory. And the best part is, I can have it and so can anyone else who truly desires it! Without “two low payments of $39.95” or a subscription fee. Yes, God’s way costs. It costs my pride, my selfishness, my weakness, my stubbornness, my sin. But, if I ask Him, God can replace all that with humility, selflessness, strength, a soft heart, and forgiveness. I won’t ever get all the money I’ve spent on the newest diet or fitness craze back, but with God, He’s already given me more than I’ve ever paid.

These are the things that this Real Food Revolution is teaching me. (Who knew I could be so insightful?? Weird, right?) I love eating foods that God envisioned for us to eat and enjoy. I love knowing that I’m nourishing my body with foods that God designed for us to nourish our bodies with! It brings me closer to Him in a weird, funny way. Like I said, please know that I only speak for myself and you have to decide between you and God what is the right eating plan for you. God made each of us different and each of our bodies different, so we all need a different plan to fit our needs.

All in all, God is good. Every day. All the time.

This is totally not what I planned to write about today but sometimes you just gotta go where your fingers take you. I will be posting in the next couple days what I actually planned to write about: the results of some new recipe experiments I tried this week and my new Real Food meal planning system!

Also…………….

I have something REALLY exciting coming in the mail this week!!! I can’t wait to tell you all about it! But i’m going to keep it a surprise until then! (I can feel your excitement building.)

❤

Molly

No Boys Allowed. Well…if you really want to…but you’ve been forewarned.

So this Friday was just an average Friday night here in Williams’ Household. Husband was out of town for work (again. I miss that boy when he’s gone), and cool party animal that I am, stayed home and boiled my new menstrual cup.

Say WHAT?! (did she just use the word ‘menstrual’ in a public blog (GASP) and what in the name of pants is she talking about???)

This is where the boys can feel free to stop reading. (I tried to warn you.)

I’ve already alluded to the fact that I am ‘riding the crimson wave’ this week and I did already give my full disclosure warning about this blog being for reals-no leaving out the weird, personal stuff-so naturally I’m going to talk about it. But I have a specific reason I want to talk about it. I don’t just go spouting off about my period for no good reason. I’m not that weird.

Rather serendipitously, I came across some very interesting info on health and your period this week as I was ravaging the internet for information for my new real food obsession. And let me tell you, organic is not just important for what we eat ladies! Being a hardcore tampon girl my entire menstruating life, it never once occurred to me that I could be putting toxins, chemicals, and even pesticides into my body through my tampons! What is this craziness?? Not only are we subjected to monthly bleeding, but we can actually poison ourselves and even potentially reduce our fertility through the only small comfort we have during this time of the month?? I don’t know about you but that feels like a bit too much to handle. Especially when I’m so emotional.

I read this excellent blog post from Weed ’em and Reap (my new Everything Guru) and this is what the author discovered. (I’m paraphrasing and summarizing the long and short of it here so PLEASE read her full post-she deserves all the credit!)

The truth is that tampons are made of cotton. Which is a plant. And plants are treated with pesticides. And can be genetically modified on top of that. Tampons are also made of rayon which is apparently essentially wood pulp (splinters in your va-jay-jay anyone?) and the processing of rayon produces super creepy dioxin, a very, very bad toxin, which can make it’s way into your very own tampons under your bathroom sink. And unless you are buying organic tampons, you are subjecting your delicate lady parts to these toxins and pesticides every month. I was totally doing it too.

There is also a theory held by some doctors in the OBGYN medical community that tampons can contribute to infertility as tampons don’t allow tissue to be expelled during our period, since they only absorb fluid, and can cause a back up of tissue in our uterus, which you can imagine could get quite unpleasant. I have literally been using tampons since my very first period over 14 years ago. That’s a lot of tissue just chilling out in my uterus. I want to make room for babies in there some day!

So, if we aren’t buying organic tampons (and who can freaking afford that? Tampons already cost more than I’d like to pay considering they are being used for something that makes me bloated, cranky, weepy, and bloody), are we stuck using diapers I mean, pads? Please Dear Lord, I cannot face that. Please let there be some alternative.

Welcome to the Menstrual Cup my friends!!! Now, please don’t be like, “this girl is nuts and if she thinks she is about to ask me to put a CUP in my ladies parts, she is SUPER NUTS” and stop reading. I promise, it’s better than it sounds!

I actually read about Menstrual cups about 6 months ago and promptly called my sister and was like, “um hey, have you ever heard of a menstrual cup?” She had and told me what she knew about them but neither of us were converts at the time. But when I came across them again this week, I was like, “it’s time.”

So basically, a menstrual cup is a small, flexible, medical grade silicone cup that is placed in the vagina (yes I used the actual clinical word this time…don’t freak out on me) during your period to collect any expelled blood and tissue. It is reusable, safe (no worries of Toxic Shock Syndrome), and can be worn for up to 12 hours at a time! HALLELUJAH!!

For those of you visual girls out there who cannot seem to picture this (I couldn’t either), here is a picture of a cup on the Lunette website.

Now let me just say that I am not at all squeamish about these types of things (like I said, I used tampons from day 1 of my menstruating life, switched to non-applicator tampons in college, and also use the Nuva Ring) so this idea did not really freak me out at all. But maybe that is not you. Maybe you are like “this is freaking disgusting, get me out of here!” But I have a question for you…Do you like saving money? I LOVE saving money. LOVE IT. I also love not having to strategically plan when to put in a tampon before bed so I can get the maximum amount of sleep before Toxic Shock Syndrome sets in. Would you like that to? Would you also like the comfort of knowing that you are not inadvertently putting toxins in your body and harboring years of tissue in your uterus potentially affecting your fertility? For me, the menstrual cup pretty much had me at the first two. That’s how much I love saving money and sleep.

So this is how I ended up boiling my new menstrual cup on a Friday night. I researched the different brands out there – I chose Lunette because of their sizing options and thorough sizing guide (plus I liked their packaging, silly I know) – and began my search to find one. I was hoping not to have to order one since I was currently in the midst of my monthly friend and was anxious to put it to use this month. No more toxic tampons for me. Luckily, a store near by had the one I wanted and I rushed out to get it. I was so excited, I even braved rush hour traffic. (It’s sad what makes me excited sometimes. This is what happens when husband is away.) I ended up getting a blue cup, which I’m glad about. I originally wanted clear but the store only had blue and after reading up on washing it online, I read many comments on how the clear cup can become discolored over time. (A trick to help with this is always rinse your cup with cold water after emptying before washing with warm water and soap*. This helps prevent discoloring).

*IMPORTANT: If you are thinking about getting a menstrual cup of your very own, remember to purchase some unscented, mild soap to clean it if you don’t already have any. I did not think about this and all I had were scented soaps at home. It’s actually pretty tricky to find a truly unscented soap, even plain old Dial soap has fragrance in it. Lunette offers its own wash you can buy, but since I did not think of this until after I left the store (which was 30 mins across town) I ended up getting Dr. Bronner’s Unscented Baby Mild Soap which I found at Rite-Aid. Many fellow cup users use Dr. Bronner’s to clean their cups, but please check you brand’s website to see what type of soap they recommend (other than their own brands of course).

So there you have it! I am a changed woman! The cup is super comfortable, easy to use and empty (give it a few times to come up with a system that works for you), and super cost effective! They last many years and can be used during all types of activities without leaks or strings. I used to be the biggest tampon advocate but MOVE OVER TAMPONS, THE MENSTRUAL CUP IS WHERE IT’S AT.

Okay, boys, you can open your eyes now. The graphic girl talk is over.

For now.

I did some massive recipe organizing and meal plan strategizing this afternoon which I’ll be sharing in an upcoming post. I’m also thinking about sharing my experiences with detoxing from processed foods (super fun to go through while also having your period. (Oops. Sorry boys, that just slipped out by accident)).

Laters friends!

First Meal and Lessons in Marriage

hi friends! How are things going?? Things are going great here! Loving the real food revolution that’s happening in my house and my body!

I promised I would detail our first real food dinner, the results, and reveal who cried during the process. So here goes…

After deciding to jump head first into our new life with real food, I wanted to take the existing meal plan my hubby and I had made for the week and convert it to using real, clean ingredients. I did this because I wanted to see how well our favorite recipes would convert (I suspected pretty easily). Plus I figured keeping the menu familiar would help husband extraordinaire transition to my new real food frenzy.

So up on the docket for sunday night’s dinner was balsamic marinated chicken with Caesar salad. Super easy. I jumped online to look up a recipe for balsamic vinaigrette dressing for my marinade and caesar dressing for the salad. That was pretty much all I had to convert. I already make my own croutons (impressive, I know!) so that was a cinch. I had already been grocery shopping for a couple hours and then spent another couple hours demolishing and reconstructing both my fridge and my pantry so I was pretty beat by the time dinner prep began, and it was a prime PMS night (oh…did you not realize this was going to be one of those kind of blogs? Where we talk about everything, weird, gross, or bodily? It is. We will. So get ready for full disclosure, readers!) So to be fair, the stage was set for disaster. I had just finished putting my marinated chicken in the oven along with my croutons when I embarked on the caesar dressing. I’m not a total ‘make your own dressing’ novice so I had little to no qualms. The only thing that was strange was the anchovy paste. I am not a fan of anchovies or any type of fish paste but the recipe stated that it was critical for that classic caesar flavor. I’m not afraid of new ingredients so I grabbed some at the store and went to work. I was a little nervous that husband wouldn’t feel so adventurous about fish paste (I mean, who does feel adventurous about fish paste?). I tasted the dressing after I made it and something was off. It just didn’t taste right. I tried some experimenting and adding small amounts of things to try and balance the flavors. I did the best I could but it was time to stop fiddling and eat. I thought it was passable and I could work on adjusting it later. I mixed the salad and tossed in the dressing. I asked husband to try it. He took a piece of lettuce gingerly and placed it in his mouth like a dutiful husband.

The face he made was like the face of a child spitting out their ‘nasty’ vegetables into a half chewed heap on their plate. It was a completely involuntary look of disgust. And I lost it. For some reason, my tender feelings (already PMSing and tired) were extremely hurt even though I knew that the dressing wasn’t great either. I don’t know about you fellow wives out there, but one of my absolute favorite things in the world is feeding my husband. Maybe you think that makes me practically ‘barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen’ but it is honestly one of the greatest gifts of our marriage that I can serve him and make him happy in this way. I treasure it. And in that moment, I was a failure. Before I knew it, the tears were welling up in my eyes and husband was totally bewildered. He apologized immediately but it was too late for my tender feelings. I went into hurt, defensive (and kind of bratty) mode and proceeded to tell him he didn’t need to eat dinner if it was so gross and could make himself some chicken nuggets instead. What a mess. Sometimes I am such a mess, I can’t handle it. Even though I knew I was beyond rationality anymore, I tried to get a grip but the tearing kept coming. My incredible husband trudged through my pouting, attempted to comfort me and ate two whole plates of that salad. Two whole plates. Like a champ. And that is an even bigger and better gift of our marriage. A husband who knows how much I treasure feeding him that he will eat whatever I make for him, no matter if it’s a culinary triumph or tearful disaster. (To be fair, the salad tasted much better with the chicken on top-the marinade was awesome and helped balance the flavor of the dressing.) Marriages that have God working in the hearts of both husband and wife transform these tearful moments into some of the most treasured as we can see the silhouette of Christ in our spouse as they sacrifice for us, even by doing something as silly as eating salad. And for that, our first real food meal was a complete success. It was less about the food and more about love and sacrifice. Oh man, God using wonky caesar dressing to touch my heart. What a crafty guy He is.

We have since had several very successful and delicious clean eating meals, of which I’d love to share about (and share recipes) next time. This first week is shaping up to be awesome.

Till next time!

Molly

Real Foods! Finally!

If you came back for this second post, Thanks! It makes me feel like less of a loser.

This is the post where I will actually start sharing the start of my Real Foods journey. (Finally! I know, right??)

If you read my first post, you’ll know that a few weeks ago I was at my breaking point with feeling and looking like crap. Little did I know that God was answering my plea for help and leading me into a wonderful land full of milk and honey (literally!)!!

So here’s how it all began.

Via the ever wonderful and knowledge expanding Facebook (yes, God uses facebook. He’s cool like that), I came across a couple posts from friends that intrigued me. First was about the truth of margarine. DISGUSTING. If you like margarine, seriously, don’t look it up. I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you. I used to like it too. I know how it feels. The next was a blog about a woman’s own journey to health and happiness by eating real foods. The ideas started to click. I started reading labels, and not for calories, for ingredients. I started to realize that “light” and “low fat” are LIES. LIES, I tell you! They are foods with all the fat and calories sucked out and because they, then, taste like paste and raccoon poop, they fill them full of chemicals to make them taste good again. But those same chemicals make us crave more sweets and salt and junky food. Vicious cycle. No wonder I wasn’t ever full and satisfied. I was eating chemically altered raccoon poop and craving even more! (No, really, I wasn’t eating raccoon poop, but you get the idea.)

This new information was dizzying. The best way I can describe it is like seeing something horrible or disgusting and you can never go back to a time where you haven’t seen it. In order to try and describe it to my wonderfully patient husband when I came home with an entire car full of real, traditional foods, after promising “we would take it slow and replace our food one thing at a time,” was to equate it to about 6 weeks ago when I had Laser eye surgery and he watched my procedure on a tv screen all up close and personal. Two weeks before his own procedure. Bad idea. He could never un-see what he saw. (And I watched his procedure after having mine done because I thought it would be ‘safe’ since mine was over. WRONG. It was DISGUSTING. and I now have very intimate, very permanent knowledge of my husband’s eyeballs.)

I admittedly did try to start slow. After almost falling asleep (again) from an over-eating lunch on Friday, this past Saturday, March 1st, I simply tried to eat clean with whatever we had on hand. I managed really well actually. I was reading all I could get my hands on, in terms of understanding labels, products, food, how to shop for and cook real foods, but physically and financially, I was taking it slow. I swear! I stopped by our new, local Trader Joe’s after reading many recommendations for their products to grab some corn tortillas for our planned taco night for dinner. I admittedly also grabbed some organic sour cream (I just can’t give it up!), some whole wheat, clean breads to try out and some coconut oil. I also grabbed a Misto oil sprayer and some salad dressing containers (for homemade dressings) from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. And that was it. I was so proud of myself for taking it slow.

(And yet. Two days later I’ve already created an entire blog on the subject. Can you tell I get a little enthusiastic when excited about something??)

But like I said, it’s like seeing something you can’t un-see. I knew I needed to go to Aldi for some things for our dinner last night so I went out after church to pick up what we needed. As I was walking in the aisles, I kept looking at the shelves and people’s carts and seeing, what appeared to me, bottles and boxes and bags with that poison skull and cross bones on them. I couldn’t stop seeing everything as the processed, chemical laden toxins that were waiting to destroy us all! (okay just kidding, but I seriously couldn’t look at anything the same way again.) Everything, to me, looked like lab experiments rather than salad dressings and spice packets and cake mixes. Things I had eaten my entire life, up until the day before. Talk about a transformed mind. (Check out Romans 12:2 for God’s awesome word on the subject.)

So…this is what led to the eyeball discussion when I got home. Remember how I told you we were a dorky budgeting couple? Well, I definitely spent more than I thought and way more than my husband had been led to believe when I left to “get a few things for dinner” (but I really didn’t do so bad in the grand scheme of things – $120 for a whole lot of staples we didn’t have on hand and specific ingredients for our upcoming meals this week). I really didn’t mean for it to happen, but I really and truly couldn’t go back once I started. And from all the blogs I’ve obsessively read the last few days, it seems like most people have this same reaction, but they all advise readers to take it slow. I apparently didn’t read that part until later or I had one of my 28 year old memory lapses. Either way, I have yet to come across a real food, clean eating blog where the writer didn’t also run out and buy a bulldozer for their pantry, so maybe “take it slow” works great in theory but it impossible to practice when it comes to eye opening world of processed foods.

Needless to say, I also cleaned out my entire pantry and fridge (something else I said I wouldn’t do) as soon as I got home. Though, in my kindness and attempt to avoid my husband hating me forever, I left his favorite staples untouched.

Small tagent…All throughout my healthy journey I have never forced my husband to give up anything he wanted to eat and the same goes now. I know how many times my family tried to get me to eat all different kinds of ‘healthy’ when I was growing up and it was all pointless until I wanted it for myself. The same is true for everyone, husbands included. My husband is the most supportive and encouraging person in my healthy journey and he almost always adapts to my healthy eating in our home. He knows that he can eat whatever he wants and that whatever I cook will be healthy. Win, win. As a result he has lost weight himself and became inspired to start running. He is looking better than me and could already run faster than me on his first day out. (we ran together once while I was doing my 5k training and I swear he was galloping along like a lithe gazelle while I wheezed like a crippled elderly person with COPD after weeks of training. we never ran together again.) I’m so proud of him. (I mean, once the bitterness subsided from our failed running date.)

All in all, it was actually a really good thing to dig ruthlessly into our pantry yesterday, despite my bull in a china shop attitude. What I discovered, other than a million and 500 overly processed and chemically laden products, is that we had a LOT of stuff in there we NEVER used. Stuff I can’t even remember when I bought it. It was honestly really good to get rid of all the excess and only have things in our pantry that are real and clean, but will also be used! I always used to look at our pantry after grocery shopping and wonder, ‘what the heck did I just buy all this stuff for?’, because it always looked so overly full. But in reality it was full of junk that was never used. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to be so wasteful anymore. I divided up the items to go out into two bags (not including items that were expired or stale), one with opened, still usable items that I can see if friends or family could use (with proper disclaimers on their contents of course!!), and the other with unopened items that can be donated to a food pantry. I don’t love the idea of giving food away that I don’t feel comfortable consuming myself anymore, but I also don’t like the idea of throwing away food that would be served at a pantry or soup kitchen anyway, whether I donate it or not. I fully realize that buying and eating real, clean, organic foods is not something everyone can afford or wishes to do, so I would like to at least try to donate and give away foods that people would likely buy at the store anyways.

After I finished cleaning out the pantry, I had two giant, stuffed Aldi bags ready to be given away, in addition to a small amount of fresh items in our fridge.

The fruits of my labor.

The rest of my night consisted of making home made dressings and marinades for our dinner, making said dinner while watching a Disney movie marathon on TV, and then researching clean eating detox symptoms. (I will be happy to share more on that later as well as how cooking my first real foods dinner went. Spoiler alert. Somebody cries. I’ll let you think on that till next time).

❤
Molly

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