Heavenly Homemakers

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Menu Plan for the Week ~ Lots of Apples and Dip

September 21, 2014 by Laura 2 Comments

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

basket of apples

We are loving all the apples available to us right now! We are now completely stocked with homemade applesauce for this winter, plus we’re eating a lot of apples for snacks and with meals. One of our favorite ways to eat these apples is with Cream Cheese Fruit Dip. If you haven’t tried this recipe yet – do it. It’s amazing. My kids think it’s kind of like dipping your apple in cheesecake. :)

You’ll notice in my menu plan below that I am serving this dip twice today – once this morning for a college age Bible class Matt teaches at church; and again tonight for the teens who come to our home for Bible study and fellowship.

Cream Cheese Fruit Dip

Hope your week is full of blessing! Here’s what our menu looks like:

Sunday, September 21
Easy breakfast casserole, apples with cream cheese fruit dip
Lamb roast, potatoes, carrots, gravy, peas
High school huddle – Pizza boats, tossed salad, apples with cream cheese fruit dip

Monday, September 22
Dark chocolate almond granola, grapes
Taco salad, fresh pineapple
Sloppy joes on cornbread muffins, peas, apples

Tuesday, September 23
Scrambled eggs, turkey sausage, creamy orange cooler
Tuna salad on lettuce and tomatoes, strawberry ice cream, sweet peppers
Baked three cheese chicken pasta, tossed salad, green beans

Wednesday, September 24
Green machine milkshakes, honey cinnamon muffins, apples
Bacon, egg, and avocado salad, honey whole wheat toast
Chicken fried steak strips, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans

Thursday, September 25
Grape nuts cereal, blueberries
Taco quesadillas, raspberry lemon cream cups, carrot sticks, olives
Easy noodle stir-fry with broccoli, zucchini, and carrots

Friday, September 26
Pancake and sausage muffins, applesauce
Easy cheesy bean dip with chips, fresh pineapple, sweet peppers
Chicken nuggets and french fries, carrot sticks, grapes

Saturday, September 27
Bacon cheesy eggs, raspberries
Leftovers
Italian cream cheese chicken, tossed salad, asparagus

Be sure to download our free new Fall Menu Planners here.

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Hit Restart, Save $10

September 2, 2014 by Laura 3 Comments

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

Right now, I’m very much in a “stock up on groceries for fall and winter” mode. I want to be set up to have company, to bake for others, and to make our school days easier. Being well supplied with ready-to-grab groceries is super helpful to me. Many of you (like me) already purchase food online from Vitacost. It’s a wonderful option for healthy groceries, low or free shipping costs, and home delivery – my favorite part!

If you are new to Vitacost, you can shop through my referral link and get a free $10 off your first order of $30 or more. You’ll love all the great food they offer, and to get $10 free? Well, yay! Even better, if you purchase $25 or more Vitacost Brand products, shipping will be free. (Otherwise it’s just $4.99.)

Free $10 At Vitacost

Items I recommend:

  • Vitacost Brand Coconut Oil (this one tastes and smells like coconuts)
  • Vitacost Brand Refined Coconut Oil (this one is odorless and flavorless)
  • Enjoy Life Soy Free Chocolate Chips
  • Organic Whole Wheat Pasta
  • Tinkyada Brown Rice Pasta
  • Organic Brown Rice
  • NuNaturals Liquid Stevia
  • Coffee (YUM!)

Obviously, there are hundreds more products – those are just some of our favorites. Go get your free $10!!!!!! Your healthy food restart will arrive on your porch in just a few days! :)

This post contains some affiliate links.

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1-2-3 Meal Planning: Hundreds of Real Food, Real Simple Ideas

August 17, 2014 by Laura 9 Comments

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

I am very excited to introduce a brand new resource we recently finished for you! 1-2-3 Meal Planning not only walks you through a super simple menu planning system, it contains over 250 real food, real simple menu ideas.

123 Meal Planning Cover sm

Overwhelmed trying to put healthy meals on the table each day? Burned out on all your old stand-by meals? Want to be better at serving fruits and vegetables? Have limited time to cook? Well – this eBook is just what you need.

Ideas, ideas, ideas. This book is full of them. From fall to winter, spring to summer – these easy, seasonal meal ideas will make you hungry and inspire you. Best of all, this resource will take the frustration out of thinking so hard about what food to make.

100’s of recipes in the book are auto-linked, which means you can click directly on the link and gain immediate access to the recipe right here on my website. You can buy this eBook right now and access it right away for just $5.

1-2-3 Menu Planning
$5.00
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Menu Plan For the Week (Have I Told You How Much I Love Food?)

August 17, 2014 by Laura 4 Comments

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

We were in the kitchen putting dirty dishes into the dishwasher together after lunch. As is common after a meal, we were all discussing what we needed to do the rest of the day and how it was all going to get done. Beyond our normal “at home” work, we had two outside commitments to keep: 1) Pick up our food co-op order and 2) Elias, age 12, had soccer practice in the evening.

When Elias realized he may be at soccer practice when the Azure order was brought into the house, without thinking he said, “Wait. Can you maybe not put it away until after I get home so I can look at it first?” Quickly, he grinned at himself for requesting something so silly.

I think this kid is a lot like his mama. There is nothin’ silly about wanting to stare at food. Right? Right???

I see food and I’m like, “Oh my goodness! Look at the beautiful green beans and all the deliciously juicy grilled meat! The canned peaches are sooooo pretty and see these great potatoes that I just got at the farmer’s market?!” But then there are those of you who are like, “there. is. a. watermelon. and. some. other. food. please. pass. the. salt.” Do you mean to tell me I haven’t yet convinced you all of the joy of staring at food? I’ll keep trying.

anniversary trip 144

EEEHHEEEE!!! IT’S SEVERAL DOZEN SWEET CORN FALLING OUT OF BAGS!!!!!!!!

Well anyway, it seems that Elias and I are very similar when it comes to our love of food. He loves going to the grocery store with me – just to look at all the food (and, of course, to smell the pineapple’s bottom). He loves seeing our Azure orders and our Amazon Subscribe and Save orders come in. He likes looking into the pantry to see all the goodies. He loves looking through cookbooks to get new ideas. He loves chocolate and desserts. Hopefully, eventually, he’ll love eating vegetables. We’re working on that one.

So…food. This time of year is so rockin’ with all of the amazing FOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!! Who’s with me on this? Peaches and nectarines dripping with sweet juice. Sweet corn dripping with butter. Watermelon dripping down my chin. I’m not ashamed. I love this time of year. 

We got home from our anniversary trip and had to get to work right away putting up fresh garden produce. It’s hard work! But the bounty and the goodness of this food?! There’s so much to be grateful for. We’ve been picking, snapping, blanching, and freezing (or eating!) green beans. We found a great price on sweet corn (see beautiful picture above) and got several dozen shucked, blanched, cut off the cob, and frozen. This week, we’ll be making fresh salsa with tomatoes and peppers from our garden. We’re frying okra from our garden and eating it like it’s candy.

Meat off the grill with all these fresh fruits and vegetables on our table? Well, it is just incredible.

I’ll take the hard work. I’ll step around overflowing compost buckets and stand over a steaming pot of boiling water in a hot kitchen. Then Elias and I will stare at it all and imagine how great it will be this winter when we can pull this goodness out of our pantry and out of our freezer to eat.

Having said all of that, you can imagine how much fun I have making a meal plan this time of year. With all the fresh variety available – healthy menu planning is awesome.

Speaking of menu planning, I’ll let you in on a little secret. This weekend, we finished a project we’ve been working on! Watch for details of how you can get this resource for free. :)

123 Meal Planning Cover sm

Here’s our menu for this week. (Won’t that food be fun to look at??!!?!)

Sunday, August 17
Creamy orange cooler, granola, blueberries
Italian cream cheese chicken, tossed salad, cherry tomatoes, green beans
Grilled burgers, tomatoes, lettuce, homemade pickles, watermelon

Monday, August 18
Green machine milkshakes, giant breakfast cookies, raspberries
Pasta salad bar, cantaloupe
Grilled barbeque chicken, corn on the cob, fried okra, peas, grapes

Tuesday, August 19
Crock pot breakfast casserole, nectarines
Hamburger sauerkraut dip with tortilla chips, cherries, kiwi
Grilled Italian chicken, baked potatoes in the crock pot, green beans, tossed salad

Wednesday, August 20
Pancake and sausage muffins, cantaloupe
Spanish rice with taco meat, spicy avocado dip, fresh pineapple
BLT wraps, sweet peppers, carrot sticks, strawberries

Thursday, August 21
Pineapple mango smoothies, fried eggs
Black bean chicken nachos, olives, pineapple
Beefy enchilada bake, tossed salad, strawberry/peach/apple fruit salad

Friday, August 22
Instant oatmeal packets, blueberries and strawberries
Cheddar ranch burgers, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, watermelon
Chicken salad with crispy cheese crackers, sweet peppers, honey glazed carrots, peaches

Saturday, August 23
Cheesy scrambled eggs, strawberry-peach-orange smoothies
Leftovers
Taco salad, nectarines

I’ve asked before but I’ll ask again:  Who likes staring at food?

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BLT Wraps – The Perfect Summertime Meal

May 14, 2014 by Laura 17 Comments

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

Nothing says “I’m a humble cook” like shouting really loudly that this is the best recipe you’ll ever eat!  My bad. What can I say? There’s bacon in it. And cream cheese. The goodness of this recipes has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the amazing mixture of ingredients all rolled up in a tortilla.

This recipe is so easy that my kids made it on their own for our family to eat on Mother’s Day. These can be made ahead of time – or at the very least, you can cook the bacon and prepare the tomatoes and lettuce so that you can put them together right before serving time.

The best part? Well…the bacon, duh. Yeah, but the other best part? These wraps really hit the spot on a hot day. There’s minimal cooking involved, so the house won’t heat up. Serve these with a variety of fresh fruit like pineapple, watermelon, or strawberries. Set out some sweet peppers, sliced cucumbers, and carrot sticks. What a wonderful, nourishing meal.

BLT Wraps

Yum

5.0 from 1 reviews
BLT Wraps - The Perfect Summertime Meal
 
Save Print
Author: Laura
Ingredients
  • 4 ounces softened cream cheese
  • ½ cup mayonnaise
  • 8 slices cooked and crumbled bacon
  • ½ cup chopped tomatoes
  • ½ cup shredded spinach, romaine, or green leaf lettuce
  • 3 eight-inch whole wheat tortillas
Instructions
  1. Mix cream cheese and mayonnaise until smooth.
  2. Stir in bacon crumbles and chopped tomatoes.
  3. Spread mixture onto tortillas.
  4. Sprinkle shredded lettuce on top evenly.
  5. Roll tortillas up tightly.
  6. Cut each into 5 diagonal slices.
  7. Chill until ready to serve.
3.4.3177

 

BLT Wraps

Tip: Make the cream cheese filling ahead of time and store it in the fridge. Then simply fill your tortillas at meal time, wrap, and serve! These work great for brunch, lunch, party, snack…pretty much any time.

Which do you like better: bacon or cream cheese?  How sweet it is that you can have both in this recipe, at the same time. :)

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My 10 Favorite Real Food Pre-Packaged Convenience Foods

May 8, 2014 by Laura 16 Comments

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

Can food be pre-packaged, convenient, tasty, and healthy – all at the same time? Why yes, as a matter of fact it can. Is it possible to fill your shopping cart with foods that are nourishing, delicious, and guilt free? Why yes, as a matter of fact it is. And finally, does anyone know where I might have put my favorite pen? Eh, that’s okay. I figured it was worth a shot to ask.

There are many healthy foods that take little to no time to prepare. Today as I was putting lunch on the table and asking the boys to pull out strawberries, carrots, peppers, and pickles from the fridge to go with our meal, I was once again struck by how easy it is to put healthy foods on the table.

Stop believing the myth that eating healthy food is difficult and time consuming! And seriously, if you come across my missing pen, would you please let me know?

10 Real Food Pre-Packaged Convenience Foods

There are dozens of foods you can buy that are full of nutrition, just because they were born that way. You might need to take the time to peel it, wash it, or slice it – but have you ever timed yourself opening a box of cookies, then working like mad to get the plastic pouch inside to tear open? In the meantime, you really should have just sliced a cucumber.

Here are 10 great ideas for real food pre-packaged convenience:

1. Mini Sweet Peppers

Oh my goodness, have you tried these? They are deliciously sweet, perfectly crunchy, and wonderful all by themselves or in a salad. We take these on the road trips, munch on them for snacks, add them to our lunch plates, and argue about which color tastes the sweetest. I can’t get enough of these.

packaged convenience 1

2. Fresh Berries

Without a doubt, you can not compete with fresh berries picked and eaten right out of the garden. But during the times those are not available, we look for the best deals on strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries at the store. Wash ’em and eat ’em. It doesn’t get any easier than pulling out berries for a snack or a side dish with a meal.

packaged convenience 2

3. Grape or Cherry Tomatoes

Again, these are best fresh out of the garden. But since ours won’t be ready for another month or two, buying these pre-packaged works great for us.

packaged convenience 3
 4. Baby Carrots

There is some controversy over buying packaged baby carrots because of the information many have heard about baby carrots being soaked in chlorine before being packaged. Read this info and do with it what you wish. As for me, sometimes buying a package of baby carrots is a huge help in my effort to provide my family with extra veggies during a meal.

packaged convenience 4

5. Mixed Greens

Think making salad is too time consuming? Oh for Pete’s sake. Just buy a container of mixed greens and throw it on the table. It’s pre-washed and ready to eat. We go through a couple packs of these each week.

packaged convenience 7

6. Pickles

Open a jar, put it on the table, your work here is done.

packaged convenience 6

 7. Cheese Sticks

These can be a little pricey compared to buying a hunk of cheese and slicing it yourself. But when we’re talking about pre-packaged convenience foods, this one is a winner. Cheese is great for an on-the-go protein snack. Yay cheese.

packaged convenience 5

8. Larabars

Yes, you can made these homemade. I’ve done it myself many times. But sometimes my family needs something to stuff in a pocket to eat in between soccer games. I watch for great sales and coupons through Amazon or Vitacost, and buy these by the case. They contain fruit and nuts only – a great healthy snack.

packaged convenience 8

9. Fruit Leather

Again, I make this homemade sometimes too. But for a fun treat, I like getting pre-packaged fruit leather when I find it on sale.

packaged convenience 9

10. Raisins

Buy them by the bag or in individual serving sized boxes. This pre-packaged convenience food is awesome for snacking. And really, aren’t those tiny little boxes just the cutest?

packaged convenience 10

What else? Oh, I could list tons. Peanuts, cashews, almonds, bananas, apples, grapes, oranges – think of all the pre-packaged real foods there are to pick from! Never again can we ever claim that healthy eating is difficult. And never again should anyone carry my favorite pen out of my office, put it down, and forget about it.

Leave a comment and tell us your current favorite healthy convenience foods. It’s great to share so we can all get new ideas!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

The Many Joys and Frustrations of Homemaking

April 24, 2014 by Laura 9 Comments

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

Nothing is perfect this side of Heaven. That’s why we have dust and cobwebs, back aches, lost library books, and challenging parenting issues. It can all draw us closer to God (true perfection!) and help us recognize our need for His strength. We also know that even with all the crazy and frustrating aspects of life, there is also a lot of joy. Hey, if we can’t laugh at our spilled buttermilk…

The Many Joys and Frustrations of Homemaking

As we focus this week on remembering that Homemaking is Fun, I want to encourage you with some posts from the archives.

Let’s begin with a few lessons I’ve learned about dealing with some of those less than ideal situations:

~ My best lesson from Grandma…Every Good Cook Burns Herself Sometimes

~ Best (ha!) sleep-over breakfast ever…The Day I Forgot To Sift the Popcorn Out of the Waffle Mix

~ Ugh, picky children!…I Can Now Accommodate Picky Muffin Eaters and Mix and Match Oatmeal Bars

Now let’s talk to all of you who don’t love to cook:

~ This one speaks for itself…So, You Don’t Like to Cook?

~ Donuts, again?…Start the Day With a Healthy Breakfast

~ My favorite “I don’t feel like cooking” breakfast…Instant Oatmeal in a Jar

dark_choc_granola_3

And we’ll wrap it up by talking about ways to save money:

~ Freezer meals rock…Loads of Make-Ahead-Meal posts

~ This is a HOT deal right now!…Grab Your Free $10 For Whole Food Groceries

~ Our favorite whole food meals that cost about $1 per plate…Dollar Menu Recipes

 

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Forget Everything I’ve Ever Said About My Low Grocery Budget

April 17, 2014 by Laura 60 Comments

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

How to Handle an Increasing Grocery Budget

Well, please don’t forget everything – just the parts I shared a few years ago about how I can feed my family of six a whole foods diet for less than $500 each month.

See, I thought my kids ate a lot of food at that time (2011)…because they did. They’ve always been very active and have had hearty appetites. But now? Well, we can polish off 2 pounds of meat, 2 pounds of strawberries, 1 pound of frozen vegetables, 5 pounds of potatoes, and a half gallon of milk – in one meal. An hour later they’ll need (and I do mean need, not want) more food, so we’ll eat a bowl of apples, four bowls of popcorn, and a hunk of cheese.

The boys who used to look like this:

boysbreaddough15sm.JPG

Now look like this:

GG_8

The little one who loved dressing up in costumes and climbing on my bulk groceries…

bagofoats6sm.JPG

Can now eat his weight in bulk groceries. And he’s the youngest one of the bunch. You should see his 6’3″ brother eat. Those 50 pound bags just don’t stretch as far as they used to.

The food portions we put on our plates at meal time still look like this:

fruits and veggies 11

But that’s just a warm-up. An appetizer. A teaser plate. They polish that off and go back to heap more onto their plates, twice, or maybe three times – if there’s anything left. I typically have to act quickly if I want seconds (or firsts as is the case at times).

I love this. Feeding people is fun for me, watching my family eat great food is a joy, and observing healthy appetites does my heart good. Bring on the food, bring on the appetites, bring on the healthy eating!

But it does come with a price tag – an ever growing price tag that sometimes shocks me, especially when see the shopping cart, the bulk co-op purchases, the cases of food delivered to my door – and I know how long the food will (won’t) last.

grocery cart

This is what my grocery cart usually looks like (weekly) – filled with fruits and veggies to go with the farm fresh meat, eggs, and milk – plus all of our bulk food purchases.

Do I really mean for you to forget everything I’ve ever said about how to keep a low grocery budget while still feeding your family a whole food diet? No way. All of my tips and tricks still hold true. Our grocery budget would be increasing whether we were eating whole foods or not. I don’t even want to think about how much I would be spending every month if we were eating large amounts of processed food. I believe eating healthy whole foods is what is keeping our food budget as low as it is right now.  Therefore, we’ll continue to:

  • Make as much food from scratch as possible
  • Buy food in bulk to cut cost
  • Avoid eating out much
  • Do freezer cooking
  • Find great deals online
  • Shop through our co-op
  • Take advantage of Amazon Prime/Mom/Subscribe and Save
  • Eat less expensive foods like rice, potatoes, beans, and pasta
  • Grind our own grain to make whole grain flour for our baked goods
  • Drink mostly water instead of purchased drinks
  • Avoid wasting food (as if there are ever any leftovers to waste)
  • Watch for sales on items we buy at local stores, then stock up

Our grocery budget increases, but only because we’re eating more food, and there’s not much I can do (or want to do) to change that. If they are hungry, let them eat.  Just save some for me, boys!

To accommodate the changes in our grocery budget, we’ve had to shuffle some numbers around in our overall budget. Eating is not an option. The money has to come from somewhere, right? So where has it come from?

Well, as we’ve taken a look at all the line items in our budget, it can look at first glance as if there is no flexibility. After all, we try not to spend money on anything we don’t feel is necessary, so what can we possibly cut out? Nothing, really. And while I’m on the subject, can I tell you how nice it is to have a clearly itemized household budget so that we can put a name on every dollar we earn and spend? There is so much comfort in this, even if there are sometimes question marks about how to adjust those numbers.

What has worked for our family is this:  Our boys are now able to earn money by doing various jobs such as mowing lawns, raking leaves, shoveling snow, babysitting, and other miscellaneous jobs people call on them for. Our two oldest boys are licensed soccer officials, which means that in the spring and fall they are called to the soccer fields 4-5 days/evenings each week to referee games. They are good at what they do, they enjoy the work, they earn nice paychecks, and they are good savers. So guess what? In an effort to both help our household budget and teach them how to manage money, our boys have become more responsible for purchasing many of the items they need.

As a result, we’ve been able to shift some money from our clothing budget over to our grocery budget. We let the boys pay for their own outings with friends, church youth functions, part of church camp costs, etc. Aha! It’s a win-win. The boys get to continue eating (you’re welcome, children), plus they learn about budgeting for themselves.

I’d love to hear how you manage your grocery budget, how you cut food costs, and how you teach your kids about managing money.

Also, I want to encourage you to take advantage of what BudgetFocus offers in the area of setting us a specific (but simple!) household budget. I love this resource! Through Mother’s Day, they knocked down the price of an annual plan to just $19.95 – a super deal!

Now let’s talk grocery budgets. How are you holding up with growing appetites at your house?

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Easy Cheesy Bean Dip

April 15, 2014 by Laura 16 Comments

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

Need an easy and filling lunch, dinner, or snack?

No Laura, what we actually need is a complicated recipe filled with weird ingredients that our family will hate.

Okay, fine. The question above was rhetorical. Did you know that sometimes I like to be sarcastic? (also rhetorical)

Well anyway, my family loves this recipe and I think yours will too. It’s great to throw together at lunchtime and serve with organic corn chips and fresh fruit. Or, you could smear this dip in a whole wheat tortilla and wrap it up to take on the go. You could take it to serve at a party. You could make it for a game night. You could make it for a simple evening meal. You could make it for breakfast. Really? Well, sure, if you really want to. Would the breakfast police actually show up and arrest you for serving bean dip with your morning coffee? Don’t answer that. It’s rhetorical.

Easy Cheesy Bean Dip

Easy Cheesy Bean DipYum

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup sour cream
4 cups refried beans
3 Tablespoons taco seasoning mix
3 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

Mix cream cheese and sour cream in a large bowl. Stir in refried beans and taco seasoning. Spread mixture into a 9×13 inch baking pan. Sprinkle cheese over the top. Bake in a 350° oven for 25-30 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Serve with organic corn chips and salsa if you like.

What are your favorite quick meals to serve?  (I’d like you to answer that question. That one is not rhetorical.)

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Food Is Nourishment. What a Concept. {31 Days to Real Food Reality ~ Day 6}

January 5, 2014 by Laura 10 Comments

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

31 Days 300

It was way back in my “eating low-fat” days as a college student and young married gal. I would eat a bowl of low-fat cereal with skim milk for breakfast. Lunch might be a turkey sandwich with low fat mayo on “light” bread, and a side of fat free chips (aka salted cardboard). For a snack, I’d have Pepsi and Twizzlers, which are both fat free. Dinner would be any variety of food made with skinless chicken breast, white pasta or potatoes, and maybe a salad with fat free dressing. At the end of the day, I would feel great about how I’d eaten for the day. “I’ve had hardly any fat today!” I would say to myself.

That’s what I thought it meant to eat healthy.

There is a common truth in the way I used to think about eating and what I know believe about eating:  I need to be aware of what I’m putting into my mouth because it is important to eat a healthy diet.  What I didn’t recognize then, however, was that food isn’t just meant to fill a hole. Food is meant to nourish us.

Nourish.

I was getting very little nourishment when I ate a low-fat diet. Why? Because nourishment wasn’t my focus. My focus was on avoiding fat, not on consuming nutrients. Somehow, candy and soda made it on my “healthy” list.

Is It Nourishing

Whether eating low-fat or not, I’m going to venture to suggest that there are many who are consuming very little nourishment. Even people who over-eat. How can this be? Well, there are many edible products on the market that fill a hole, but offer very little nourishment. What nutrients are found in a bag of chips? A slice of white bread? A box of crackers? A box of cereal? A slice of American cheese?

Please don’t hear me heaping on guilt to those of you who are still eating many of those foods. Hey, I eat chips, cereal, and crackers sometimes too. It’s fun, it tastes good, and we enjoy the occasional treat. But I also know that if that’s all we were eating, we would not be receiving much nourishment – I don’t care how fortified the box claims its contents to be.

When making healthy food choices, we must always consider how much nourishment it will give our bodies. Crackers are a fun snack and may hold our kids over until dinner, but are they doing much to give their bodies needed nutrients and fuel?

A well-balanced diet of healthy fats, lots of fruits and vegetables, meats, dairy, rich broths, nuts, and few whole grains will give our body what it needs to thrive! When not given foods filled with nutrients, our bodies can make do for a while, but then we become depleted and sick. Sickness takes on many forms, from sluggishness to disease to everything in between.

So when making food choices, ask yourself, “Is this going to nourish me?”

Fill your body with food meant to nourish! What’s great: Nourishment comes in all forms of deliciousness. Our list of options for real food nourishment is longer than my leg, because God is good to give us wonderful variety! This real food thing just keeps getting better all the time, doesn’t it?

What’s your favorite form of nourishment? When you picture foods that fuel the body well, what foods comes to mind?

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!
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