Saturday, February 26, 2011

The Real Food Challenge

I'm thinking about food a lot lately. I spend a lot of my time, energy, and money feeding my family: breakfast, packed lunch, packed snack, dinner. I want that food to be healthy, healthy for my family, my community, and the planet. I want that food to be ethical, in that it involved as little exploitation and pain as possible for animals, the planet, and the workers who grew and processed it. I also want that food to be yummy and within budget. That's a tall order to fulfill.

Over at Not Dabbling in Normal they are hosting a Real Food Challenge in March. I still haven't decided if I want to join the challenge or not, but I have decided a few things I want to do:

2. Make my own protein bars instead of buying Z Bars anymore.
3. Make my own yogurt more often (Hypatia doesn't like it, but Carbon and I do).
4. Bake my own gluten-free bread and save the Udi's brand bread in the freezer for emergencies.
5. Make more homemade treats for when I have a sweet craving - chocolate dipped dried fruit for instance.

And, of course, I want to continue cooking our meals at home, and involving the kids in the process. Menu planning and finding cool new recipes is also important to me. In a very real sense, we ARE what we eat, so what is more important than this?



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small fingers cutting up vegetables
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yogurt in the making
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3 comments:

  1. You're already doing way better than the majority of Americans!

    Since my kids went "veggie" a year ago, I've been forced to learn new habits. Our family doesn't eat fast food or frozen dinners, but we do order way too much pizza and Chinese food. I need to plan better and make better use of my slow cooker!

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  2. I've been giving a lot of thought about this same issue lately. My family is doing better in the food area lately, but still have much room for improvement. It is hard to juggle it all!

    Is that a yogurt maker? If so, do you like it? I've recently given serious thought to buying a yogurt maker especially because I want to make coconut yogurt since it is so expensive at the store (dairy allergy) but my kitchen space is tight so I try to limit gadgets. I'm curious if they are as cool as they seem to be.

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  3. It is a yogurt maker, and I do like it. It primarily is just a warming plate, though, and I have a friend who makes yogurt in a warm oven - so you might not need the gadget. But if you are interested in making yogurt, mine is the yolife yogurt maker kit, and it came with the jars, the warmer, and the culture. I've made soy and dairy yogurt in it.

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