Heavenly Homemakers

I have two friends.

Okay, I have way more than two friends…but right now I’m going to be talking about two friends.

These two friends are named Ima and Erma. (While these may sound like ficticious friends…they aren’t…the friends are real…I just changed their names so as not to embarrass them on my blog).

Ima’s husband has had poor health for years. Once when Ima was visiting with me in my kitchen while I was making honey whole wheat bread she looked into my pantry at my whole foods and said, “Oh, you do try to make everything healthy don’t you? My husband is always on me to cook more like this. I just don’t want to.” Then Ima shrugged. 

Here’s my advice to all the Ima’s out there who have husbands that want to eat healthier:

If your husband wants to eat healthier…then I would certainly think that as his help meet you would want to work to learn a few things about healthy eating. It is not as difficult as you might think. What a great gift you would be giving your husband…which would be a blessing to your marriage and your entire family. 

Now, on to my friend Erma…

Erma has a husband who sort of understands that eating healthy is a good thing…but the guy just really likes his junk food. And he loves to eat out. And he really likes giving their kids fun treats like “Fun Dip” and popsicles and hot dogs, because…it’s fun. Erma is totally into healthy eating and has had a very hard time with the way her husband likes to eat because she knows that licking colored sugar off of a sugar stick (Fun Dip) is not a good snack for her kids. And it really bothers her.

For a while, Erma fought her husband on this. She got mad at him everytime he brought home sugary cereals and white bread from the store. The kids started noticing that that Mommy got mad about the suckers Daddy would bring home for them. It was causing bitterness within Erma and tension in the family.

Finally Erma realized that her husband and kids did also eat the healthy food she prepared. The treats her husband brought home were rare…and he did it because he wanted to do something fun for his children. It was a special thing for Daddy to do. 

So Erma decided that it was more important to have peace in the home than to have a perfect diet. She knew it was better for all of them to eat healthy foods…but the trouble she was creating by fighting her husband all the time about it was not worth the “unhealth” of the family. She began smiling at him and thanking him when he brought home pizza so that she wouldn’t have to cook. And she’d fire up the grill when he brought home hotdogs for a fun cook out. (And she’d get out carrot sticks to go with the hotdogs)  :)

It is amazing the transformation that happened in the family when Erma just lightened up and worked to follow her husband’s lead about food. Now he even works a little harder to make sure the kids eat their veggies!

Erma, you rock. 

I wanted to tell you about my friends because I’ve heard from several of you out there whose husbands aren’t as excited about making healthy changes as you are. I want to just encourage you to follow their lead. Move slowly and try new things. Make tiny changes. Make their favorite foods, just try to make them with the best ingredients that you can. Try healthier foods that are fun (like my Giant Breakfast Cookies or Donuts).

Above all, be cheerful about it.  And don’t give up.  As long as he’s okay with it, keep making small changes to your diet so that your family is given the nourishment they need. And, if he brings home a package of oreos…pour everyone a glass of milk and just sit yourself down and enjoy them! 

What’s it like at your house? Are you and your husband “on the same page” when it comes to eating healthy?   And…what’s it like teaching your kids to eat healthy foods? I’ll be talking about that soon!
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Read more Works for me Wednesday posts here.

If you’ve missed the other posts in this Getting Real with Food series, be sure to go read them!

All this information about healthy eating can be SO OVERWHELMING…huh? Especially if you’re used to buying and eating mostly pre-made convenience foods. Now you’ve learned that you need to “find good healthy sources of milk and meat from cows that have gone to college and have a Master’s degree”. And you should become the little red hen so that you can “grow the wheat,  cut it, chaff it, and mill it” (Andrea’s fun commentary on what we have to do if we grind our own flour!). And “eat only organic produce that has nary a pesticide on it whatsoever and grew on a tree that was sung to sleep every night”. Please, can someone just hand me a poptart? 

NO! Don’t fall back on the poptart! Eating healthy doesn’t have to cause stress. That would be…unhealthy. :)

I love to cook and bake, and it comes pretty naturally to me. Even so, when I began making healthy changes for our family a few years ago, I also found it overwhelming to think about all of the ins and outs of it. Cooking macaroni and cheese from a box would take so much less time and be so much easier than making macaroni and cheese from scratch from wholesome ingredients, wouldn’t it?

Guess what I’ve found? It DOESN’T take much longer and it ISN’T much harder! 

Over the past few days, I’ve been charting some of the things I do in the kitchen…and guess what I found? All the work I do to feed my family a healthy diet really doesn’t take hours and hours. It really, really doesn’t!! You just have to get into the swing of things, that’s all.

Like, take for instance, the fact that I grind my own flour. This job consists of me pouring grain from a sack into my grinder…plugging it in…and turning the knob to “on”. Then, I walk away and do other things (like read someone’s blog, or check email!)…then I go back in and turn it off. Done. I’ve ground flour. Whew.

Or how about soaking the flour before you make your recipe? It hardly takes any time at all…you just have to plan ahead a little. Oh, and you have to stir.

And cooking a whole chicken? Well, yesterday I did this…and today…I’m not even sore. I stuck that bird in a pot of water with some veggies (that I didn’t even take the time to peel), shook in some salt…and walked away. The chicken cooked all day long, all by itself, and made the house smell really good too. Go chicken…go chicken.

And I could go on and on about the simple REAL FOODS you can make without difficulty. Cooking from scratch and preparing healthy meals doesn’t always mean that you have to labor in the kitchen for EVER. Often it’s just about planning ahead and getting the food started…then just waiting for it to be ready. 

And…the more you cook…the easier it will be and the faster it will go. (I can practically bake bread in my sleep now…and I’m pretty sure I have on occasion…)

You CAN do this!! YOU can do this!! You can DO this!!! And you can keep reading my blog for more help…and you can email me anytime you want with questions. I love it when you email me! It excites me to read about the changes you’re working to make and to see that you care enough to try and learn! 

So keep on making great changes and learning new things about healthy eating! Your good health and the good health of your family is worth it!

So…how are you doing on this healthy eating train? What’s going well for you? What’s overwhelming you? How are ya feelin’?
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Be sure to read more Works for me Wednesday posts here at Shannon’s awesome blog!