My Crazy Life

Finding Joy in the Journey

What is real?

July1

Recently I have been realizing that my family does not eat very healthy food most of the time.

It is amazing how much we eat out and make quick convenience foods instead of having healthy sit down meals at home. I think a big part of the problem is that we are too busy. This morning I was thinking about how I could remedy that.  So I was asking myself the following questions…

what is it that we eat?

what are the most unhealthy things that we eat?

why do I buy/make these things?

It was then that I realized that the things that we eat that are the most unhealthy are the convenience foods. Things that I buy to save time or for when “I don’t feel like cooking”. Also I bought a lot of canned foods for food storage like spaggettios and canned chili. These are probably not the healthiest choices for my food storage but they would keep us alive in an emergency. Then I asked myself…

what are the healthiest foods we eat?

how can I incorporate more of these food into our diet?

Well the healthiest foods we eat are probably raw fruits and vegetables and whole grains. Wait a second……raw….whole…hmmmm. Then it hit me…..REAL FOODS. The things that actually grow from the earth the original things that are processed to become the products that I have been feeding my family.

If I leave out the processing I am left with a much healthier product.   The irony of my calling it real food is that these are exactly the foods my husband says are not “real food”. Then I started thinking about the FOOD groups and realized that most of the  “foods” we eat don’t even fit anywhere on the food pyramid.

Take pizza for example…. pizza is not in any one category. I have decided that this is because pizza is not a food (ok ok I know it is a food but for my purposes here I am going to consider it a product). Pizza contains several foods such as cheese, wheat, meat, and vegetables. Each of these can fit into one of the food groups therefore they are foods. I could make pizza (the product) a lot healthier if I made it with healthier foods. Such as whole wheat flour, homemade tomatoes sauce (made with real tomatoes and less salt), or topping it with vegetables (or in my case blending vegetables into the sauce because no one else in my family would eat it if they were on top). Just little things like that.

The solution to my problem is to buy real foods. If all I have is real foods then I have to use them. The problem may come that “I don’t feel like cooking” but I think if we do our budget right that wont be as much of a problem either because we will only have so much “eating out” money. Plus I may set a limit on how often we eat out or keep a calendar to make myself feel guilty. Or maybe a food journal for my kids. That might be a good idea anyway to keep track of what they eat so I can see which areas need improvement. Anyways I am rambling and this is getting pretty long but I just wanted to share my epiphany about “real foods”.  Thanks for reading 🙂

posted under Nutrition
One Comment to

“What is real?”

  1. Avatar July 22nd, 2010 at 11:36 pm Kimmel Tippets Says:

    Thanks for sharing your epiphany! I really like that. I also really like the idea of a food journal for your kids. I think it’s a great way to keep track of what exactly they’re eating. I may have to start that with my girls and myself!


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I am a 25 year old mother of 2 crazy little boys. I am blessed to be able to stay home and care for my boys.  My oldest is three and my little one is almost 2. They definitely keep me busy. My oldest son who I will call Mercury is quite a a handful he is very spirited, creative, and energetic. He is always looking for something to get into which makes for lots of fun blog posts. My younger son who I will call Zeal is a beautiful toddler and is always following in his big brothers footsteps. Right now he is into whatever Mercury is into but adds his own little personality to the mix. This blog will basically be about my adventures in parenting and trying to run a household. As I am a Latter Day Saint and also plan on homeschooling you may also hear tidbits about these and other interests as well. Happy Reading!