Food Evolution

About a year ago, I mentioned to Brian "I wish I had a good vegetarian cookbook." We were eating one of our favorite (but few) meatless dinners we call "Spring Pasta". It's delicious and I wished back then that I had more great recipes like it, because honestly I have to beg my kids to eat their meat (unless it's fish) at dinnertime. They devour all kinds of carbs, fruits and vegetables, though, and it's hard to keep my fridge stalked fully with them.

So I guess you could say this has been a long time coming... this food evolution we are going through. Our mindset and tastes have changed a bit over the course of a year.

Since that wonderful dinner a year ago, we have come across educational movies such as "Food, inc" and "Back to Eden"(which also has a great website backtoedenfilm.com). I totally recommend watching these, probably better worth your time than other movies out there! My next "to-watch" item is "Fork over knives." These messages really resonate well with Brian and I.

They have not only been educational, but inspirational. We've read books and visited websites that have educated us to be more aware of what we are eating. I wanted to make the change to eat healthier and make better choices at the supermarket (not that we were very unhealthy, but there was room for change), but I was just too lazy. I was comfortable with what I bought and how I cooked.

It wasn't until dealing with Calvin's very sensitive tummy limiting my diet, that I come across this:

 This wonderful little chart has helped me a ton to manage what I could eat so that the breast milk I created was not too acidic for Calvin's tummy to digest. But I noticed how the majority of what I "could" eat, not all (I really only have to be careful of the very last column), were fruits and veggies....so I decided to take the plunge! I've been introduced to knew food ingredients such as spelt, and quinoa. I've ordered a few interesting "whole foods"cookbooks, and cookbooks on how to bake with grains other than white flour. I totally recommend these (although there are tons more I'd like to read and try):

This book has a recipe for whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies and other great stuff I have yet to try! 

and

Heidi also has a fab website called 101cookbooks.com. I love it!

It's been educational, eye-opening, and exciting. Our family has actually really liked the switch! Instead of planning meals around a meat dish each night, I will serve meat maybe half of our meals out of the week. We LOAD up with all the good stuff of fruits and veggies, and whole grains. It's been fun thinking of ways to serve as many fruits and vegetables in a meal as I possibly can. I've secretly been excited to see the refined snack products slowly disappear from our "snack" shelf and get replaced by better food.

Of course, there are some favorite dishes that I can't give up which include meat, or the use of white flour...but for the majority I think we are making a great change in the right direction!

So for what it's worth, the change I had to make for Calvin has been good after all, since it has pushed me to do what I've wanted to do for a long time, and have just been too lazy to do it! I have opened my eyes to be more aware of what I am feeding my family. I  think we are happier for it!

(I have seen a menu plan for 30 days of vegetarian meals, and I'm "thinking" of giving it a try... I'll let you know if I do, and how well it goes over with the family! I can do 30 days, right?!)