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Compromising at Christmas Time

December 13, 2011 by Laura 21 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Some of you may remember reading this post last year, as I wrote it for another site that had asked me to contribute. This year, I decided to tweak it and post it for you here!

Coconut Cupcakes

I am always so tempted to make food compromises at Christmastime. There are extra events going on, making it harder to put healthy meals on the table. Plus, there are sweets and holiday goodies at all of the parties and get togethers. SO MUCH SUGAR…and it always looks so pretty. Ah, frosting and sprinkles. Why must you tempt me so?

So, what should we do? Avoid all parties and shun all forms of sugary goodness? Or throw caution to the wind, dump a whole container of sprinkles directly into the frosting bowl, grab a spoon and get down to business?

Sugar bonks our immune system right on the head, so the motivation to stay healthy is helping me reach for carrots instead of fudge. But I also know that if I avoid sugar completely, I’m likely to eat the entire pan of fudge later. Allowing treats is okay – sometimes.

But here’s what I’ve decided:  The treat has got to taste really, really good. I’m not wasting my sugar intake on a tasteless, dry cookie or a three day old donut. Any treat I indulge in needs to be fresh and gooey. There needs to be chocolate involved. Or cream cheese. Or both.

And here’s another way I compromise during busy times like this. I’m not making every single bite of our food from scratch. Even during what usually tends to be a busy Christmas season, my family still prefers to eat three (to seven meals) a day. I find that buying baby carrots or pre-made whole grain English muffins helps save my sanity. MOST of the time, I cut our carrot sticks, and bake all of our bread. Right now, I feel good if I’ve remembered to give my kids vegetables in the first place. If I need to spend just a little bit more for some healthy convenience during these next few weeks, so be it.

It’s all a part of keeping Christmas time simple this year.

I think we need to cut ourselves some slack. When we work almost constantly to save money and make food from scratch, that buys us a little bit of “chill out time” during those weeks when you can’t tell your comings from your goings and your Christmas lights are tangled up around the tail of your frustrated cat.

The moral of the story is this:

Try not to eat much sugar, and when you do indulge in a treat, make sure it’s the kind that makes you faint from deliciousness. Also, when your son’s birthday falls a few days before Christmas, go ahead and buy “take and bake” pizzas for the party because making a homemade crust might make you say things you’ll regret.

Yes indeed, I’ll be buying pizzas for my son’s birthday next week. Guilt free.

It’s okay, I’ll make whole wheat organic crust again in January.

When do you make compromises? What compromises have you had to make during this season?

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Compromising Our Whole Foods Diet

January 21, 2011 by Laura 98 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Tonight we’re hosting Elias’ 9th birthday party. 

You know how our house is always full of boys? Tonight there are even more of them. Right now they are all running around shooting each other with laser guns and Nerf guns and somehow I think there is a hallway basketball game going on at the same time. Now that takes talent.

We always let the birthday boy choose his party food. He usually takes into consideration what he thinks his buddies will like. And, surprise – surprise, he usually doesn’t choose “Tossed Salad” or “Spinach Smoothies”.

I was recently asked by one of you (but for the life of me I can’t find the comment to quote it exactly):  “Laura, can you tell us what foods you will occasionally buy at the store for convenience…and which foods you will NEVER buy?”

This probably doesn’t answer that question as specifically as the commenter was wishing for, but well…here’s what I bought for Elias’ birthday party dinner tonight…

If that’s not a compromise I don’t know what is.

I have to say that it was more than a little bit painful pulling them off of the freezer shelf and paying actual money for them. Incidentally, I also had TWO GALLONS worth of vodka in my cart on this shopping trip as we’re getting ready to start yet another big round of Homemade Vanilla Extract. Yep, it looked like one BIG party in my shopping cart tonight. ;)

The pizza rolls were Elias’ choice and while the ingredient list is longer than my hand (I am not even kidding), I have to say that it was a nice relief to just throw them in the oven and put out some paper plates and call it dinner. Besides, I was in the middle of baking his birthday cake and getting Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls ready for tomorrow’s breakfast for all the boys. The ease of dinner (if we can actually call it dinner) was really nice.

Here’s why I feel okay (not great, but okay) about buying and feeding my family these pizza rolls tonight:  We eat a really healthy diet about 357 days of the year. On those other few days or moments of the year when we are traveling, eating with others, hosting parties, going to parties or attending any event that has a meal comprised of chips and candy…we go with the flow. We don’t act all “weirded out” about the fact that we’re being served food that doesn’t meet our normal healthy eating criteria. If I’m offered Nacho Cheese Doritos at a get-together, you better believe I’m going to have a few and I’m going to enjoy myself.

We try not to go over-board and pig out because yikes…our tummies aren’t used to eating that kind of stuff. But we really cannot be enslaved by healthy eating.  Being paralyzed by these fears can be unhealthy in and of itself.  Compromising used to be a huge fear of mine, especially when I was first learning about what was healthy and what was SCARY and unhealthy. But I’ve “come down off the ledge” and realized that a few crazy junk foods here and there are not going to kill us. Especially when we follow it up as soon as possible with good, wholesome, nutrition-filled foods.

Which we will, by the way…tomorrow.  Those spinach smoothies will be making their appearance.

And for the record, while there are many things I just close my eyes and compromise on occasionally…I will never, ever knowingly or willingly purchase or eat margarine. Can’t do it. Won’t do it. Can’t even think about it.

Blech. Helgpaht. Mliiegylk. Pgvughhha.

Eeek, I get very gaggy when it comes to the thought of the yellowed tub of chemically created fatty-fattness spread that we’re told is better than rich cream whipped into golden goodness…otherwise known as REAL butter.

But a pizza roll or a Dorito…yeah…I’ll eat one here and there. That doesn’t even make sense does it?

So what types of “food” will you compromise on sometimes?  And which “foods” make you screw up your face and say Helgpaht-blephln?

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When to Compromise on Healthy Foods??

August 16, 2010 by Laura 43 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

I always try to make my guests feel like I went out of my way to “treat” them to some good home cookin’, but I will let you know that I do compromise a little on some of the ingredients I use when I’m feeding a very large crowd. Hey, when you’re feeding 40 people five different meals within a week’s time, can you expect a girl to make all the mozzarella cheese and tortillas and bread for every meal? 

Also, I’m not always willing to share some of my home-canned produce. I’d run out of our home-canned tomato sauce real fast if I used six jars to make enough lasagna to feed everyone one meal.

Is this selfish of me? Is it wrong of me to compromise? I don’t think so, but you may (kindly) disagree with me. My own family comes first and while I am very willing to share our good, healthy food on most occasions…I know that my resources are somewhat limited. I can’t just run right out and replace our home-grown organic produce once it’s gone. I have to ration it for the year and be wise with how I use it. 

I still use real butter and in general “real ingredients” when I’m cooking for large crowds…I just don’t always whip out my stash of real maple syrup or sucanat.

I find that in general, people are so used to eating processed foods, that even my homemade food made with what I consider to be compromise food is a treat for them. 

I also don’t feel like eating the occasional “less than the best” foods are going to kill my family. We eat very well at almost every meal. Eating the occasional store bought tortilla or white french bread from the bakery is okay. Really, I think it is.

I think that if I felt like I had to feed all of the extra people we feed our grass fed meat and homemade bread made with freshly ground flour…I would probably drop the whole thing and NOT FEED ANY EXTRA PEOPLE EVER. So what’s the trade off? Should I serve others, or be so worried about compromising ingredients that I never serve ever? 

I will say that in our day to day company…the times that we have just a few people over at a time…I DO tend to stick with our normal way of eating and I do it without a problem. We’ve budgeted in extra knowing that we feed a lot of company, therefore I buy extra meat and can/freeze extra produce to accomodate. But that’s just enough for “regular” company. Its a little different when we’re feeding 34 extra people at one time!!

Oh, and I will also admit that during these days that we’re feeding all these extras…we’re using paper plates. :(  I HATE using paper plates (both because of cost and because of waste) but seriously I don’t think I could stay sane if I was washing all those extra dishes. I’m still trying to get through a school day at home too, ya know? I bought a bag of Solo cups, had the girls write their  names on them and we’re using them all week long. And I did NOT buy styrofoam anything…but still. I hate using disposable and I’m doing it anyway. I know my limits.

Alrighty, well this was a choppy and poorly written post. Let’s blame it on the fact that my week is VERY busy and I don’t have time to concentrate or edit. :)

I’d love for you to share your thoughts on when you compromise on healthy foods and when you don’t. And when do you pull out the paper plates? ;)

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