I’m so grateful for this guest post from Amy at Finer Things. Not only can I now go spend time finding a shovel so that I can dig out my kitchen and once again have a clean dish to cook with….this post is just so well written and helpful. Thank you Amy! And just so you know…I don’t think you are a wimp. :)
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I’ve learned a lot about healthy eating over the past few years. Mainly, that healthy eating isn’t what I thought it was! While soaking my grains and making my own yogurt and buying everything organic still seems a bit out of reach for me, I am making strides.
You can, too! Feeling wimpy about your healthy choices? Overwhelmed about a 180° turn in your eating habits? Here are some of the things I’ve done; painless baby steps if you will.
- I make all of our own bread in the bread machine. The machine does the work, then I shape and bake the loaves.
- I’m gradually increasing the amount of whole wheat in my recipes, rarely making anything with just white flour. We are all adjusting beautifully to the heartier taste and texture of whole wheat, and find it very difficult to eat plain white.
- We only eat natural peanut butter. That’s an easy fix. It doesn’t cost much more than the partially hydrogenated scary stuff, and it tastes great!
- I work constantly to reduce the amount of sugar in recipes, especially muffins and sweet breads. Substituting applesauce or mashed bananas for some of the sugar (and oil) works nicely. I also add other fruits to the mix, cutting the sugar nearly in half. We don’t miss it!
- No more margarine or shortening in my house. It’s all butter here. After I got over the price shock, it was an easy switch. I’ve learned to stock up and freeze butter when it’s on sale.
- We recently found a farm for our eggs and milk. It completely blechs me out to eat a pale yellow store-bought egg now, and the milk? No more infertility-causing skim milk for us. I had no idea! Did you?!
- While I still buy the occasional granola bar or box of cereal, those items are stored in our basement “out of site, out of mind.” They are saved for our ballgame bag (can’t be any less healthy than concession stand food!) or spur-of-the-moment road trips.
See? Small changes can lead to healthy strides in your wimpy eating!
What changes are you ready to make?
Stephanie says
I love the little steps… I am a new convert to the old fashioned/better ways of the past. I too am making small changes and found Heavenly Homemaker website because of a search for homemade bread. I am hooked and LOVE this website and the bread. My husband thought I was going through some sort of about to turn 35 change of life crisis…. LOL!! Well, I am sort of, I want better things for myself and my family and am so thankful for all the blogs that offer information on such things. I too still buy the premade pizza but I must crawl before I walk.
Mary Ann says
Great post, Amy! We’ve made many of the same baby steps to healthier eating. And they’ve been relatively painless. :-)
Quinn says
Thank you so much for sharing this post! Especially the part about the milk- so disturbing. We were actually searching for a farm where we could buy raw milk last weekend, but the closest is 50 minutes away. I was showing my husband why it was worth the drive, and he wasn’t quite sure, but I might have to get a little more persuasive now.
I did learn that skim milk is actually blue and they have to put dry milk in it to get it a “normal” color.
Otherwise, I’m doing a lot of the things on your list already. Except for the sugar, we’re in the process of phasing out boxed cereal and we just substituted vegetable shortening with lard I rendered. (We don’t use shortening much anyway, but now I don’t have to use it all. The first thing we noticed is that you can actually easily wash the lard off the utensils whereas with shortening it seems to take forever and maybe even a direct application of dish soap. Interesting.)
Valerie says
Thank you Amy! This is a great article. Another way to eat healthy is to use basikbox, a portion control tool for managing portions. basikbox.com
Tracey says
I am another one of those people taking small steps toward feeding my family healthier meals. We are getting away from processed foods and I am doing more of my own baking, making healthier substitutions as you mention in your post. Thanks for the encouragement as well as a couple new ideas to add to my list!
Jen B says
You can freeze butter? How long does it last? I never thought of freezing butter.
Amy @ Finer Things says
I’ve had it in the freezer for 6 months without a problem. The sales get really good 2 or 3 times a year.
Danielle says
Make sure you only buy unsalted butter. Unsalted butter is the freshest.
Andrea in Alaska says
Really? Why? What brands do you buy, Amy, Danielle?
Laura says
When I buy butter at the store, I always buy SALTED actually. The unsalted almost always contains “Natural Flavorings” which means yucky stuff (msg usually). Otherwise I would buy unsalted also.
Trish says
Thanks for sharing. I’ve also been taking small steps in our journey towards eating better. I buy organic pb from costco (only ingredients are peanuts and salt); we buy our milk from a local farm, it’s pasteurized – all processed on the farm, but I know the cows are taken care of and we are supporting a local farm; I also purchase butter from this farm, when it’s available; no more cereal in our house, I made baked oatmeal for breakfast almost every day, although we sometimes have eggs or toast; I make as much as I can from scratch, and I could go on. Thanks for the encouragement in taking these small steps.
Becky says
Great post! It gave a great starting point for people trying to eat healthy, yet who are a little overwhelmed by it.
It resonanted a lot with me b/c these are the things I’ve been doing. Now I just need to figure out where to go from here!
One other thing I did was simply change from white rice to brown rice and regular pasta to whole wheat/partial whole wheat pasta. The taste difference is minimal!
The Working Home Keeper says
One of the best changes we’ve made this year was to start shopping at our local farmer’s market. Not only is there a wonderful selection of local, organically-grown fresh fruits and vegetables, but also grass-fed beef, pastured pork and chicken and pastured eggs.
We also started shopping at Whole Foods – which was really intimidating at first. Especially since I used to be such a coupon queen. But I’ve found that by sticking with whole ingredients and other staple items (and avoiding the boxed foods), Whole Foods is just as easy on my budget as any other grocery store.
The Happy Housewife says
Great post! I think so many people get overwhelmed when it comes to making the switch. There are little things you can do and they add up to big changes.
Toni
Amy Green - Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free says
I have spent a lifetime jumping on this or that health bandwagon, searching for some elusive perfection in my food. Today, I eat, I listen to my body, and I adjust as needed. That doesn’t mean that I don’t take outside info into consideration. But, in the end, I have learned to trust my body and my own experience. It works for me.
Wheat is like poison to my body. It’s been at least 6 years since I used anything except real butter. (Do you remember spray butter…it’s not for me anymore.) No processed sugars, either. And lots of fruits and veggies. I love spinach. Milk – I don’t drink it anymore. But I use it to make ice cream – 1% and heavy cream. :) My two cents…
Jennifer says
This is exactly the way we have tackled eating healthier too. Great ideas!
Paul says
I think this is neat seeing everyone making an effort to eat and live healthier.
I want to make a comment about sugar. It is sweet to the taste, but can wreck havoc on your body. Down to the bare bones of it all, it compromises the immune system. Therefore, if you are sick in any way and still eating a lot of sugar laden foods, it will take longer for you to get well.
Some may indeed know the detrimental effects of sugar and indeed stop consuming it. However, if this describes you, but you still eat a lot of processed food, you are basically trading a bad egg for another bad egg. Processed foods digest so quickly. So fast in fact there is a similar spike in blood sugar as when you eat normal sugary foods.
The best thing to do is try to limit intake of both. Keeping to whole grains, basically whole foods, nuts, seeds, fruit and vegetables is the way to go. How do we do this?
Substitute one meal a day with a wholesome meal. Do this for a week or until you think you are ready to substitute two meals a day for two wholesome meals. Before you know it, you will be eating like a champ.
Kimberly says
I had my house on mostly organic, very healthy eating plan. It took about 6 months for the kids to adjust. A few short months later I was in the hospital and my mil came over and undid ALL the work! It’s been a year, I was sick for awhile, lost my job due to hospital stay… and find it so hard to spend the money I was spending… Now, a year later, I’m healthy again, have a new job (very part time) and am ready to tackle getting us all on a better healthier way of eating! Thanks for your tips!
Jen B says
Thanks guys. I’m gonna start looking for sales on butter.
The Working Home Keeper says
If you have a Trader Joe’s or Costco in your area, you can find good prices on Kerrygold butter. I like using Kerrygold because it’s made from the milk of grass-fed cows
http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2008/06/more-on-kerrygold-butter.html
char says
You make it sound so easy. I guess we humans do have a tendency to make things harder than they are. I am really starting to learn more and more cooking-real back to basics cooking. I will have to keep these tips in mind. Thanks!
Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship says
Yay, Amy! I am afraid to make my own bread, but you know I do the yogurt thing…you can do it! Be brave! ;)
suzie says
GREATtips…
PLEASE DOesANYONE have a TRIED and TRUE bread MACHine BREAD?
I bought a used kenmore machine BUT it did not come with recipes.
THANKS…alll