The FINAL Blog… The family interview and wrap up!

This is my final blog about my family and the food challenge we all completed. What started as "journaling" for a 4H project for food and nutrition has turned into a lifestyle change for me and my family.  We learned a lot about the foods we eat in the last 10 days and why it is so important to eat "real" food and take care of our bodies.

I finally got all 5 of us together to sit down to discuss the 10 day challenge/pledge and to ask everyone the same questions. The following is a summary of my family's thoughts.


What was your most favorite meal?

Trent: " I liked the Proscetto wrapped asparagus and the spaghetti and meatballs"

Melissa: " I liked the french toast with 100% maple syrup"

Trey: " I liked the chicken nuggets"

Tytan: " I liked the biscuits and fruit kabobs"

Me: " I liked the Cuban sandwiches"


What was your least favorite meal?

Trent: " I did not like the egg salad spread on the triscuits"

Melissa: " I did not like the coconut chicken satay"

Trey: " I liked them all, except the mac-n-cheese and the thin pancakes (crepes)"

Ty: " I did not like the pop tats"

Me: " I did not like the pop tarts or the smoothie with spinach in it"


What was hard for you to do during the challenge?

Trent: " I thought not eating snack crackers at night was hard"

Melissa: " I thought being in the kitchen so much was hard"

Trey: "I thought eating no unhealthy food and not eating candy at the parade was hard"

Ty: " I thought no eating fruit snacks was hard."

Me: " I thought cooking the food and making two well balanced meals a day was hard"

What was easy for you to do during the challenge?

Trent: " I thought changing to whole wheat bread and using 100% maple syrup was easy"

Melissa: " I thought having the 100 days of real food website as a guide made it easy"

Trey: " I thought it was easy to realize what was healthy so I could eat it"

Ty: "I thought it was easy to eat the yummy food"

Me: "I thought it was easy already having recipes and having a family willing to try new foods"

What should we keep?

Trent: " I think we should keep the whole wheat bread and the 100% maple syrup"

Melissa: " I think we should keep buying and shredding our own blocks of cheese, whole wheat flour, whole wheat toast, seasalt, unsalted butter, the 100% maple syrup,  eating high volumes of fruit and vegetables, and continue eating at home more often.

Trey: "I think we should keep the banana pancakes and the chicken nuggets"

Ty: " I think we should keep the pizza, the new yogurt (greek), and the freeze ice pops"

Me: " I think we should keep almost everything; the grilled cheese, grilled asparagus, and the ice pops"

Did you feel any different during the challenge?

Trent: " I felt like I had less high and lows in energy level"

Melissa: " I maintained good energy for running, swimming, and biking; I had no high and low blood sugar changes because I had minimal caffeine (coffee) and minimal sugar and no high fructose corn syrup"

Trey: " Yeah, I felt like my body was really healthy"

Ty: " I felt better"

Me: " I did not have any ups an downs in energy level throughout each day and I did not get any stomachaches after eating or anytime during the day"

Would you do the challenge again?

Trent: " Yes"

Melissa: " Absolutely"

Trey: " Yes, but only 5 days next time because it is half of the challenge and we already did it once and if we did it for five days we could all pick one food to eat every day"

Ty: " Yes"

Me: " Yes it was a great experience and I think there is still a lot more to learn"

What was the hardest thing to give up during the challenge?

Trent: " Desirable ketchup"

Melissa: " I missed chocolate, candy, and the convenience of fast food"

Trey: " I missed mac-n-cheese and McDonald's chicken nuggets which I really liked but I like the new ones better but I miss the old ones"

Ty: " I miss fruit snacks and getting candy at the gas station"

Me: " I miss eating out and the convenience of regular granola bars we used to eat"


Overall we will continue to eat much healthier from now on. We are keeping almost all of the recipes and have only eaten out twice since we finished our 10 days.  We have eaten no fast food and have no plans to go to McDonalds or Subway anytime soon! We are going to keep using whole wheat flour, sea salt, whole wheat bread, unsalted butter, 100% maple syrup, homemade granola bars, organic or homemade mac-n-cheese, whole wheat pizza, whole wheat pastas, jams/jelly and ketchup without high fructose syrup. We also plan to keep pop out of the house, no candy or chips. All of us were happy to complete the challenge and learn together.  THANK YOU so much for following my blog!  Wish me luck at the Martin County Fair when I present this project to the 4H judge!

Taryn

DAY TEN! WOW… no holding back!

WE DID IT!  We successfully completed the 10 day challenge to eat "real food."  We did not eat fast food or drink any soda or sugared juices/drinks. We ate nitrate free meat, ate nothing processed, had nothing with high fructose corn syrup and ate "whole wheat" foods, unsalted butter and prepared all of our food ourselves. We ate nothing out of a box, bag, can bottle or package that had more than 5 ingredients. We learned more than we ever thought we would in 10 days. 


We were in the kitchen A LOT today.  There were so many recipes we wanted to try in the 10 days and for some reason felt the need to make many of them today. We used a record EIGHT new recipes today alone. I will highlight all the new recipes in BLUE. 


Today instead of breakfast or lunch, we had a brunch! We planned a brunch because we knew we were going to be gone during lunch time today. For our brunch we had whole wheat crepes (100 days of real food recipe), mixed fruit cup, homemade baked matchstick fries (whole foods recipe), and scrambled eggs. The whole wheat crepes had 100% maple syrup on them and were delicious, but nothing has been quite as good as the french toast or whole wheat banana pancakes from the 100 days of real food site. The fruit cup, as usual, was great. The fries tasted much like hash browns and just a little seasoned salt was all they needed. No ketchup!


Today was a long and excessive day in the kitchen. For snacks today we made three batches of granola bars. We plan to share at least one batch with friends.  We also had fun playing with our food today, making cars out of apple slices, sliced grapes and toothpicks (see pictures.) We also enjoyed a simple snack of watermelon on a popsicle stick and a few raisins. A little later we were all thirsty from being outside so we made fresh strawberry-mango smoothies with coconut milk and ice cubes. We froze the extra in the silicone ice pop makers to have for a snack tomorrow. 


From making snacks in the kitchen, it continued on to start the long preparation for the wonderful supper we had tonight. Supper tonight was made for a king! We prepared homemade chicken nuggets (100days recipe), coconut chicken satay (100days recipe), prosciutto wrapped asparagus (whole foods recipe), cobb salad with homemade bleu cheese dressing (100days recipe), and whole wheat biscuits (100days recipe). The coconut chicken satay was not so well liked by everyone (except Sampson the dog who snuck it off the table as we were cleaning up. We were amazed with his ability to carefully eat it off the skewered so we didn't even punish him!) The homemade chicken nuggets were a big hit! They were nearly gone within the first 5 minutes of supper. The prosciutto wrapped asparagus was cooked on the grill. I thought they tasted great as well. The cobb salad tasted well but we didn't care much for the homemade dressing. We are not big fans of bleu cheese anyway, so some of you may like it. The homemade biscuits were good with unsalted butter on them. Overall, it was a lot of work, but a very tasty supper full of variety. 


For a snack tonight we ate a bowl of granola with sliced bananas, and a glass of almond milk. We also prepared Chocolate Mousse (100days recipe) that we will enjoy tomorrow :-)  


I have mixed feelings about today being our last day of the challenge. I would really like to continue eating healthy but I also feel a little lost. Is it really possible to not go to McDonalds? I am really glad that I have learned a lot about our food and I have a lot more interest toward reading labels and I now know that we should never be naive about what we put in our bodies. We will definitely be making some permanent changes in our house. We also plan to continue to use fruits and vegetables as snacks instead of crackers. Tomorrow I plan to hold a family meeting to gather opinions and feedback from my brothers and parents about this challenge and will create a new post with that information. 


I really want to THANK all of you who were so encouraging when you saw me in public, sent me a message or called and offered things from your garden. It's super cool to think about all the people who have followed my blog.  I am overwhelmed with the interest everyone has in this project. My hope is you learned a few things along the way with us. As for tomorrow…. I have no idea what we are going to eat. I would usually sit up this time of night and prepare the menus for the next day. Tonight, I am going to bed! I promise to blog with a summary of our family meeting, high/low lights of the project and things we plan to change tomorrow. 


TARYN 

Brunch…. crepes were good, but nothing like the french toast.

Real fruit smoothies with coconut milk. Froze the extra in the silicone ice pop makers

Needed an extra set of hands.

2 of the pans of granola bars…. one with regular oats, the other with steel cut oats. Like my camera  and arm shadow over the pans? 

Snack time!  Trey says, "oh sweet!" Be careful with younger children and using toothpicks.

My attempt at a monster truck. HA!

Ty made his own creation! 

We were picture happy tonight. This is preparing to make the homemade chicken nuggets. I learned the "wet hand" and "dry hand" technique tonight. 

Homemade whole wheat biscuit… a cinch to make.

Putting the coconut chicken satay in the oven.

mmmmmmm…..homemade chicken nuggets! EASY! 

Cobb salad with lettuce from our own garden! Bacon, avocado, tomatoes, pears, diced eggs and homemade bleu cheese dressing. Very good…liked that we could pick and choose.

Prosciutto wrapped asparagus on the grill….delicious! 

This is what 3 hours in the kitchen making everything from scratch looks like! 

DAY NINE! Eat to Live, Don't Live to Eat

We can hardly believe we are done with Day 9 of the 10 day pledge/challenge.  We fully admit by the end of Day 2, we were all looking at each other and saying "we're never going to make it!" We joked about ordering a pizza on Day 11 from Pizza Hut.  Well, here were are a week later and we're all hesitant to go back to our old food habits, ways of thinking about food and nutrition in general. The saying "Eat to Live, Don't Live to Eat" is a whole new approach to food that we plan on keeping. There are MANY things we plan to continue, which I will summarize at the end of the challenge.

We're a toast family. We like toast for breakfast, snack and bedtime snack. We had toast and natural strawberry spread, a banana and a glass of milk for breakfast. We took an unexpected trip to town around lunch time, which normally would have resulted in ordering a pizza, picking up fried chicken or grabbing a subway sandwich. Today my mom and I shared a LUNA lemon bar, a few triscuits and water to hold us over until we got home for a late lunch. The boys were "starving" so my dad fed them leftovers (we have plenty!) and they were satisfied with that.

For lunch, we didn't get to make what was planned, but still pulled together something that met the rules of the pledge. We had Cuban Sandwiches (recipe from Whole Foods).  The Cuban sandwiches included canola mayonnaise, whole grain mustard, nitrate-free deli ham, nitrate-free salami, Jarlsburg Lite cheese, and a thinly sliced dill pickle, on a whole grain baguette. My mother was very happy to use her panini maker she bought from Pawn America! We also ate plain pita chops, unsweetened applesauce and carrot sticks. The unsweetened applesauce now tastes very sweet to all of us. It really is interesting to see how our tastebuds change when you fully take away sugared products.

We had a busy afternoon of playing outside, getting Trey to his activities and working around the house. We all took a break to snack on frozen grapes on a kabob (red grapes taste great frozen… black grapes were not as good frozen as they are fresh.)  The boys were still hungry and hot so we snacked on the frozen apple juice and frozen greek yogurt w/strawberries we made the night before and put in the new silicone ice pop makers. What a HIT those were! We have great plans to make smoothies and try other 100% juices in them for daily treats.

Supper was VERY time consuming. Tonight was a perfect example of poor planning. It took 30 minutes to wash, peel, chop, slice, dice and prepare the ingredients for the meal. The main dish was Ham, Asparagus and potato skillet (Whole Foods recipe) with Herbes de Provence for seasoning. We topped with crushed croutons from whole foods and freshly shredded monterey jack cheese and put under the broiler for a few minutes. It was very good! The best part was my brothers could pick through the ingredients like they typically do with any "hot dish" and eat what they liked. We also made mini whole wheat popovers (100 days of real food recipe) and they were enjoyed by all 5 of us! We actually have a real popover pan so we hope to try jumbo whole wheat popovers in the next week or two.  For our fruit, we cut cantaloupe with a mini star cutout… Ty kept saying "I want more stars."  I think I should major in marketing.  We also had Apple Pilaf (Whole Foods recipe) which was an interesting new side dish.

Tonight I survived another movie at the theater without any popcorn, pop or candy. I brought my own triscuits and water. The boys had greek yogurt and a bowl of Organic honey O's cereal with a glass of milk. My mom ate the last homemade granola bar!  We have plowed through those. That is a recipe we found on our own and if you want it, message me and I will email it to you.

Thoughts for today….. I really don't have many thoughts other than I feel like this has been going really well. We have learned a lot in 9 days and will definitely be making some changes in our kitchen, when we eat out and what we put into our bodies in general.  We have learned (and been very disappointed) to find that many labels are deceiving when they read "low sugar" or "low fat" because often they have many other ingredients that are terribly unhealthy for our bodies.

I also read a really interesting blog tonight about a women who investigated if Subway really has "real food."  WARNING! If you enjoy Subway and don't want to know, don't read this…. but if you want to know really what is happening behind the scenes…. read on.
http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2012/06/12/food-babe-investigates-is-subway-real-food/

Yummy lunch…fun to use our new panini maker finally! In a hurry, so we didn't slice the carrots, but it was fun to eat it like a rabbit!

Trey enjoying the frozen greek yogurt with strawberry chunks… we had to do this to his hair because he's getting it cut tomorrow! HA! 

Ty chowed on the frozen grapes and wanted more!

Harvesting lettuce from our garden for tomorrow.

Supper… Ham/Asparagus/Potato skillet, cantaloupe, mini whole wheat popovers and apple pilaf

Thanks for catching up today!  Taryn

DAY EIGHT…. Whole Foods ROCKS!

Day eight… Whole Foods rocks!

My mom and I were out the door bright and early for an appointment in the cities. We ate our homemade granola bars and I had a babybel cheese with some water to drink. Probably not the best choice but we were in a hurry. We are planning to make a commitment to be better breakfast eaters as we know how important this meal really is.

For lunch we ate at Whole Foods in Edina! We are now in love with this place, in awe of the amazing selection and healthy food choices. Although there were many things we could not pronounce we enjoyed lingering and reading labels and ingredients. We were amazed by how busy the place was and we really wish that we lived closer to a Whole Foods store. We built our own salads with romaine lettuce, spinach leaves, kale, all natural Cardini's caesar dressing, crumbled hard boiled eggs, walnuts, teriyaki chicken, and shredded carrots. To drink we had Izze sparkling Clementine and shared a cup of fruit that contained mangos, raspberries, black and red grapes, and cherries. It was very good and filling! We really enjoyed the environment and it was nice not having to cook. Meanwhile, back home the boys ate leftover pizza, chicken enchiladas and fruit.

We really enjoyed our shopping experience at Whole Foods and although were a little lost finding some of the items, we were able to get some of those hard to find things we can not find locally. The cheese selection alone was overwhelming! After about 2 hours at Whole Foods and spending less than $150, we were on our way home.

We snacked on raisins, triscuits and shared a Lemon Lara bar with water.

For supper we made the Breakfast Casserole Bites (100 days of real food website), No-Oil Mashed Potatoes (from Whole Foods website under the recipe tab), organic black grapes and sweet corn on the cob w/unsalted butter and no salt.  All of us enjoyed the entire meal except the potatoes. They had a lot of extra ingredients (cloves of garlic, unsweetened almond milk, nutritional yeast, low-sodiumn vegetable broth and granulated onion.)  For all the work and expense for the extra ingredients we were hoping they would taste better than our classic potatoes. Regardless, we decided with all the different potato recipes out there, this one was not a keeper.  The Breakfast Casserole Bites were very good, easy to prepare and can be frozen after cooled. We didn't have any foil muffin cup liners so we generously sprayed each cup with organic canola oil and that worked great.

We were excited that our new silicone ice pop makers arrived in the mail today!  (see picture)  The options with these things are endless! We filled one with greek pineapple yogurt and pieces of fresh strawberry, 2 with organic 100% apple juice and 1 with organic lemonade. We also put black and red grapes on skewers and tossed them in the freezer for a snack tomorrow. We have some warmer days ahead and think they will be a good treat!

We tried to snack on the Easy Cheesy Crackers we made last night… and that is a no go from all 5 of us!  We will be searching for a new recipe because this family REALLY misses our cheeze-its!


A FEW THOUGHTS FOR TODAY…. 1) I'm tired!  2) I want a Whole Foods in Fairmont… think that's possible?  3) Meal planning is getting much easier! Knowledge is power. We have learned a lot about food and it is much less intimidating to make good food choices. 4) My palette is definitely changing…. Tonight after basketball I thoughtlessly bit into a freezy pop (full sugar) that my coach was handing out. HOLY SMOKES… it was tart and tasted like a spoonful of liquid sugar and I only took one bite. (Please forgive me blog followers!)

One thing our family is going to permanently change after this challenge is our bread choice.  I did a little research to make sure this is a good and necessary change. We used to eat a lot of white bread and also whole grain breads. Here is what I learned. (I hope I don't bore you if you already knew this, but I never took the time before this to figure it out.)    There are 3 parts to a wheat kernel (also called a wheat berry):  The BRAN is the hard outer covering of the wheat kernel (high in fiber and nutrients). The GERM is the nutrient-rich embryo that will sprout and grow into a new wheat plant. The ENDOSPERM is the biggest part (83%). It is the "insides" of the kernel and is mostly starch.

Basically, white bread is made from refined flour meaning that the wheat and grinds used has been milled so that the bran, germ and endosperm are removed and much of the wheat's original fiber, vitamin B and iron content are removed. Manufacturers are able to re-add b vitamins and iron but the dietary fiber is lost and not replaced.

From everything I have read, it appears that wheat bread and white bread really are not very different. Wheat bread is made from wheat flour, which is made with milled wheat. It no longer has the bran or germ of the whole grains wheat, which holds the important nutrients found in whole grains.

Multi grain bread means "made with whole grains."  If the ingredient list does not include whole grains as the first few items, multi grain bread can be made with more than one type of milled grain and may only contain a very small portion of whole grains.

"Unbleached" or "enriched" while flour does not mean it is whole wheat flower…they have just refined white flour with a fancy term. Also, just because bread appears brown, it does not mean it is made with whole wheat.

Whole wheat bread still contains the bran, germ and endosperm of the wheat grain. As a result, the appearance of the bread is brown. Overall, whole wheat is a better choice as it is higher in fiber, vitamins B6 and E, magnesium, zinc, folic acid and chromium.  I have learned to look for the word WHOLE wheat flour, not just wheat flour.

Bottom line….READ the labels! We are shocked now when we look in our pantry at the food we have been eating.  Always check for "100% whole grains" on the label.  Whole grains are very good for us. They contain more antioxidants than some fruits and vegetables, can reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes, are full of iron which is needed to carry oxygen in the blood, has lots of magnesium and can help with weight lose as whole grains tend to be heartier and more filling than refined grains.

THANKS FOR READING and LEARNING with me!
Taryn

Loved this place! 

Our new silicone ice pop makers. Super cool invention! Why didn't I think of that? 

The small circle is the breakfast casserole bite…. awesome! Black grapes are pretty delicious too.

Lunch with mom at Whole Foods. YUM! She had croutons… not sure those were acceptable so I went without. 

DAY SEVEN--- 2 new favorite meals discovered today!

DAY SEVEN….. two of our favorite meals were discovered today!

Early risers at our house today! Don't my brothers know it's summer? For breakfast we had the long waited, highly anticipated homemade strawberry pop tarts. I am very sad to report that they were nothing like I hoped they would be. Trey gave it a fair shake, eating almost a whole pop tart, but he walked away from the table deeply disappointed. We clearly made up for it with the awesome lunch that we made. We prepared two balls of dough for whole wheat pizzas last night, which made for a quick lunch today. (Recipe for the dough is on 100 days of real food website but we grilled our pizzas instead of using the oven.) We began with rolling the dough out on the counter. This made six individual pizzas about six inches in diameter. The individual pizzas work best for our family because we all like our own toppings. We brushed olive oil on each side. Then were cooked one side of the crust on the grill with the lid open most of the time (they cook very quickly, in about 3-4 minutes.) Then I flipped each pizza dough over and put the sauce and toppings on immediately, leaving the pizzas on the grill and the lid open. We had to use a different sauce than we usually have. We used Eden Organic pizza Italian sauce which was very good. One can was enough for all the pizzas! We left the pizzas on the grill until the cheese was melted and quickly took them off.  I thought there was not much difference in taste with the sauce or the whole wheat homemade crust and I would call the pizzas an outstanding success! On the side we had steamed broccoli (my brothers won't eat it raw), noosa yogurt with homemade granola and fresh strawberries. All five of us REALLY liked this meal!

This afternoon, we were outside doing yard work. The boys played hard and were ready for snack. We were all busy so we hesitantly sent them in to get their own snack. Much to our surprise, Trey came out with a bag of grapes and Ty was eating an apple!  We were so proud of their good food choices today! They were still hungry after the fruit so we all came in to try out homemade granola bars.  Although they are a little more dry than what we normally eat, they have a delicious taste!  All 5 of us give the granola bars 2 thumbs up and plan to continue making them instead of eating store bought bars that have 42 ingredients in them. Our main goal with this challenge was to eat nothing processed, no high fructose syrup, no fast food and nothing with more than 5 ingredients and sugar could not be in the top 3 of the ingredients. Pretty simple rules but there are challenges! Planning ahead has become really important because one thing we have learned is that when we waiting until we were really hungry to eat, we just grabbed whatever was convenient which usually was not a good food choice.

For supper we ate chicken enchiladas, baby blonde potatoes, brown rice, cantaloupe, and steamed veggies. The enchiladas took a good amount of time to prepare but were definitely worth it! They were spicy but that was cured by some sour cream on top. My parents and I enjoyed the enchiladas while the boys did not like the spicy flavor.  The baby blonde potatoes were a hit for everyone. Trey ate about six total. We dipped the baby potatoes in sour cream and they weren't as dry then. The brown rice was plain and simple but the boys kept asking for more. They always do a good job eating their veggie and our family tends to eat about 4 cantaloups a week.

Today went very good I think. The homemade granola bars are super yummy! They were a little dry so we drink a glass of milk to go along with them. Breakfast could have been better but we got a familiar taste of pizza and something new for our family. All of the recipes today came from 100 days of real food website. This includes the cheese crackers that we are right now in the process of making. The cheese crackers are not really specifically for a meal but for snacking on the go, at ball games or in the car. More to come on that tomorrow!

A few thoughts from discussions my mom and I had today….

A great resource to learn more about Sugar is called  "Get the Sugar Out: 501 Simple Ways to Cut the Sugar Out of Any Diet" by Ann Louise Gittleman. My mom read it a few months ago and a few things really stuck with her that she shared with me today.

1) High Fructose Corn Syrup accounts for more than 40% of caloric sweeteners added to foods and drinks in the US with consumption growth matching the escalating rise in obesity.
2) Between 1970 and 2000 the per capita consumption of HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) int he US went from an estimated 0.6 pounds per person per year to 73.5 pounds per person per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service.
3) Studies comparing the French diet to an American diet, the French have higher fat diet than Americans but they are much less afflicted by obesity and heart disease that we are. They found that the per capita sugar consumption in France is 5.5 times less than than in America.
4) OUR BODIES DON'T REQUIRE SUGAR, yet the average American will consume their body weight in sugar each year.  YIKES!
5) I find this one very interesting… During World War II, when sugar consumption in the United States dropped, the number of cases of adult-onset diabetes also dropped sharply.
6) The rates of cancer have dramatically increased as sugar consumption has risen. Gittleman is not implying sugar causes cancer and it is not clear whether sugar actually causes healthy cells to mutate and become cancerous. Although, what has been proven through research is that once cells become cancerous, they feed directly on sugar, the way yeast organism does during fermentation, and sugar can accelerate tumor growth. (page 20)

Wow…. I could go on and on (so could my mom), but these are some of the hot topics we discussed today.  We just finished a yummy snack of air popped popcorn with unsalted butter and are headed to bed!  Thanks for reading!

Pizza on the grill!  YUM!

Lunch…. it was so nice to have a taste of pizza!

The boys and their healthy snack choices! 

The homemade granola bars will be on the list of keepers.

Supper was awesome!  The chicken enchiladas were super (we used all organic sauces and tomato paste). Recipe is on 100 days of real food website. We think the cinnamon can be left out. 

DAY SIX! We're figuring this out finally

DAY SIX and we're finding our groove! 

We are still managing to keep up with our healthy choices. For breakfast we had a slice of banana bread with all natural butter with olive oil in it, sliced strawberries, and small cup of plain greek yogurt with our special berry sauce mixed in. Yes… it was as yummy as it sounds.

For lunch our main course was french toast with 100% pure maple syrup. The french toast was whole wheat bread.  To make it taste really good (but still be healthy) we beat the eggs and mixed them with a silk creamer with a little pure vanilla. We cut the bread into triangles and dipped each one in the mix and cooked on the skillet. The boys helped with this task.  We greased the skillet with unsalted butter. Our old way of spraying cooking spray is a thing of the past! You're welcome Mr. environment! For side dishes we had unsweetened apple sauce, sliced carrots, and homemade ranch dip (ranch dip recipe can be found on 100 days of real food website). The great thing about the homemade ranch dip is that you mix all the dry ingredients and store it in an airtight container. When you need dip you simply combine a half cup sour cream with the dry mix and viola, fresh ranch dip!  I liked the dip and I think it is best when chilled. We also ate it immediately after mixing and it would probably taste better if it has sat in the fridge for 2 hours or so first.

Our family went swimming this afternoon and we planned ahead because we knew how hungry we would be when we were done.  We packed Lara bars, sliced carrots, grapes, and raisins. They were all gone during a quiet 30 minute ride home :-)

We had great plans for supper tonight but had very limited time to make something eat before getting to our evening activities. We made BLT's on whole wheat bread with olive oil mayo, mango noosa yogurt, green beans, and a sweet potato mixture. We peeled and sliced the sweet potato and apples. We sautéed them in unsalted butter, then steamed them in apple juice for about 4 minutes. It was a good combination of flavors, I thought. Tonight when we mentioned dessert we thought Trey was going to fall of his chair! 100 days of real food website has a Chocolate Torte recipe with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. The chocolate torte ingredients were unsalted butter, honey, pecans, dried pitted dates, unsweetened powdered cocoa, and water. We made tortes and truffles (see picture). For the whipped cream we used an electric mixer and 1.5 cups whipping cream (that's it). The chocolate sauce (which was simple amazing) was 1 tablespoon unsweetened powdered cocoa and 2 tablespoons 100% pure maple syrup simply mixed together with a spoon.  SIMPLE! I fully enjoyed having dessert and having something taste so chocolatey. My brothers did not think it was as great as my mom and I but they still licked all the chocolate sauce off the top.

Tonight was a busy night in the kitchen prepping for tomorrow.  We finally got around to making pop tarts and homemade granola bars. Tomorrow will be the true test. Our main reason for wanting to make the granola bars is that we used to eat them regularly here and tried to replace them with the Lara Bar, but as $1.00/bar on sale, it is getting to be an expensive snack.  The pop tarts were time consuming and they only produced 6 pop tarts and a small dough fight between my brothers. Because there are no preservatives we have to keep them in the fridge, not a blue box in the pantry like Trey & Ty are used to :-)   We are really looking forward to trying warming them up and trying them tomorrow! The granola bars JUST came out of the oven and even though they are a little more dry than store bought ones, they tasted pretty good. Unfortunately, we were not able to make perfect rectangles but after all they are homemade.

Overall, we are still enjoying trying new foods, having fun in the kitchen, staying away from fast food and finding ways to eat healthy. It's only been 6 days and we have made some great progress. I'm really proud of my brothers for trying new things and letting go of some of their favorites (fruit snacks, chocolate milk and macaroni and cheese.)

My thoughts for today (and I have many today):
I was excited to a see a newspaper article about the Walt Disney Company becoming the first famous media company to ban ads for junk food on all its TV channels, radio stations, and websites. First lady Michelle Obama called it a ''game changer.''   The Walt Disney Company is hoping to stop kids from eating badly by taking the temptation away. I am hoping that other networks with follow along, so kudos to you Disney! I also read through the News Flash link on the 100 days of real food site and found some interesting information that I'd like to share for you.

1."Our children have the destiny of a shorter life span that their own parents… your child will live a life 10 years younger than you because of the landscape of food that we've built around them." (Source: Jamie Oliver)

2."Coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer -- four of the top ten chronic diseases that kill most of us can be traced directly to the industrialization of our food."  (Source: Michael Pollan)

3."Two-thirds (of America) is statistically overweight or obese." (Source: Jamie Oliver)

4."Americans enjoy the cheapest food supply in the world, spending the smallest share of their income on groceries of any country." (Source: Chicago Tribune)

5."No other nation on the planet spends as much as we do on medical care." (Source: Robyn O'Brien)


Thanks for reading!
Taryn

Breakfast: Banana bread, greek yogurt with berry sauce & fresh strawberries.

Ranch Dip: Keep it in the pantry. Add 1/2 cup sour cream + 1 tablespoon mix, chill and enjoy!

Trey helping with pop tarts

Our jam filler…he's all business

Done! Can't wait to try them tomorrow!

Lunch: EXTREMELY YUMMY french toast w.100% maple syrup, unsweetened apple sauce, carrots & homemade ranch dip.

SUPPER: BLT, sweet potatoes @ apples, green beans and noosa mango yogurt.

OH YEA!  Dessert!  Super rich and sweet Chocolate Torte and truffle with homemade whipped cream and chocolate sauce. 

fresh out of the oven, homemade granola for bars

As close to rectangles as we can get!

A good amount of bars for fairly cheap and so much healthier than store bought.

DAY FIVE… STAYIN' ALIVE!

DAY FIVE…. STAYIN' ALIVE!

Today was a great food day!  We're getting better at planning ahead so our kitchen time is decreasing, leaving more time for fun stuff!

For breakfast we ate the banana bread we made the night before. My dad didn't care for it at all. The rest of us warmed it up and put a little healthy butter on it and we thought it wasn't too bad. Considering we were used to eating banana bread with chocolate chips, this was not an easy sale for the brothers. We think next time we make it, we need to add peanut butter, dried cranberries or some type of chopped nut.

For lunch we had spaghetti and meatballs. We used Galassi natural pasta sauce (a little spendy… $4.99/jar) and made our own meat balls. We put the sauce/meatballs in the crock pot before church. For spaghetti noodles we used half corn spaghetti and half whole wheat noodles. The two different colored noodles looked pretty! We also baked Alexia Focaccia Italian style rolls from the organic freezer section. That is something we will probably never buy again! We also steamed fresh green beans and served them without any seasoning. We've never used a lot of extra seasoning or salt on anything we eat so me and my brothers are used to eating things without the extra sodium. The sauce was delicious (a little spicy but the boys didn't seem to mind). Despite the cost, we plan to use it again as all five of us liked it.

This afternoon, we followed the recipe for berry sauce from 100 days of real food. We used it in milk to make "berry milk."  It was good, but it didn't make very much. We all agree we are going to try it with just strawberries next time.

We were in a hurry for supper, so we whipped up some scrambled eggs, reheated left over (planned overs as my grandma would say!) potato skins, assembled our now favorite fruit kabob, celery with peanut butter and raisins (ants on a log) and a few fresh cherries. We sprinkled a little freshly grated cheese on our eggs as a special treat.

Today I also read a post on 100 days of real food about how even if you never give your children highly processed junk food they'll still somehow manage to get plenty of it from outside sources. It's everywhere… parades, holidays, treats at school, church or after sports activities, the library, birthday parties, visiting grandma's, playmates, the sucker from the bank or grocery store, Halloween, and the list goes on and on… even at my youth group meeting tonight, they served root beer floats and passed around a bucket of candy for everyone to take a piece as a reward for answering questions correctly!  I was a good girl and didn't consume either item :-)  I also went to the movie theater and managed to survive an entire 2 hour movie without candy, popcorn or pop. It is possible…I just did it!  

For a bedtime snack, we had some raisins, grapes and a lara bar with almond milk.

A few thoughts for today…. plan ahead as best you can with your menus and meal plans. We took THREE trips to the grocery store this week! Although my mom was excited to find different flavors of Lara Bars tonight (carrot cake, apple pie, cashew cookie, key lime pie and lemon bar) so it was a good trip.  Another great thing is that we have found our food waste is minimal. We are eating at home so much we are getting through everything.  Because buying natural and organic products or some of those odd ingredients we didn't already have in the pantry can get expensive, we are being extra careful not to over buy and only get the quantities we need.  So far this week, my mom estimates she has spent $350 in groceries. Keep in mind we had to restock a lot of items in our pantry to start fresh but that is still a lot of money.  We hope to see that get less and less as we get smarter with using things in season, use items from our own garden and be better planners by buying things on sale, clipping coupons and comparing prices between stores.  Although that seems like a lot of money, we have bought some very high quality and healthy foods. We also have to consider that on average my family used to eat out about 3-5 times per week at a minimum of $30-$50 each time. When we choose to eat at home, we know exactly what is in our food and it is all fresh.

We have some really exciting meals planned for the next 5 days….! Stay tuned!

Healthy banana bread!  "No chocolate chips, really?" 

Super Yummy lunch except the roll

Silly Ty helping with the berry sauce

Berry milk… not bad! 

Quick supper…. we think we've overdone the fruit kabob…but oh well! It's fun!