Thursday, July 5, 2012

Day 9: First Holiday Meal Success!

So yesterday was Day 8 of our real food journey, and it was also the 4th of July. It was our first holiday eating only real food and I just wasn't sure what we were gonna do. What about the burgers and hot dogs (with buns)? The chips? The sugary desserts? Would we make it through on real food?

The answer is a resounding YES!!! I was very pleased with my family as we did a great job maintaining our real food plan. Dinner was awesome: grilled chicken (brined for about 8 hours in water with honey, a tablespoon of salt, some Mrs. Dash and some sliced lemons -- it was AWESOME.), roasted squash & zucchini, corn on the cob and fresh strawberries/grapes. After dinner we splurged on a mid-week dessert of real homemade strawberry ice cream, which was, of course, delicious.

After dark, we went into our backyard and were able to see all of the fireworks for a 30-mile radius and it was amazing! The kids loved it and enjoyed playing with sparklers, too. I was overcome by the "holiday-ness" of it all and decided to splurge on an extra-special treat for the family: S'MORES. We each made one and the kids gobbled them up in mere seconds! It was so much fun and was a very special memory for us (me).

Today we got back on track and stuck with our whole foods focus. And I have to tell you that I've been introduced to a beautiful, amazing breakfast treat:


Oh.Em.Gee!!! This cereal is flippin' EPIC! And check out the list of ingredients:

  • Organic Whole Wheat
  • Organic Evaporated Cane Juice
  • Organic Cinnamon
  • Natural Cinnamon Flavor
Less than 5 ingredients? That means it doesn't break Michael Pollan's food rules! I'm not sure how I feel about "organic evaporated cane juice" but all of the other ingredients are fine by me! And you guys... this cereal is to die for. Like, as in "I-just-signed-up-for-Amazon's-Subscribe-and-Save-program-to-receive-4-boxes-of-this-cereal-every-2-months" to die for. SO glad to have another breakfast idea in my arsenal. And I'm happy to tell you the kids truly loved this cereal, too. It makes a great snack food (in lieu of goldfish or Cheerios, for example) and is just as amazing in a bowl with some milk! YUM!

I'm afraid dinner tonight wasn't a huge score. I was at work (in a super awesome store... in a mall), so my dining choices were quite limited. I made the best decision I could given the options (trust me, there were no good choices... only the "least worst") and ended up with this:


A grilled chicken wrap from Chick-Fil-A. I didn't really think about it until just now, but I guess I could've taken the chicken and veggies out of the wrap and eat them (not the wrap) to lower the amount of processed food I ate. I'm not a fan of chicken from Chick-Fil-A after reading this, but again, it was the lesser of all the other evils.

I've had a busy few days but tomorrow and Saturday are WIDE OPEN so I'm looking forward to trying out some new healthy recipes and stocking the freezer for next week.

I just have to say: this transition to real food has not been nearly as scary or impossible as I thought it'd be. And I just don't miss the old processed junk as much as I thought I would. Don't get me wrong, now, we are NOT eating 100% real food 100% of the time, but we HAVE increased the QUANTITY of real food we're eating (and enjoying!) more than ever before, and are definitely trying to make better choices with every meal/snack. I can't believe we've gone well over a week without a chip, a cookie or sugary cereal. This is unheard of in my home!

Yay for steps in the right direction!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment