Processed vs. Fresh Food. A Story.

[hippywife]

I'm not even going to get caught up in that whole Sandra Lee flamefest but I do want to share something with everyone who is young enough to think they can eat anything they want with impunity.

I'm 50 years old. Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease runs in my family. About a year and a half ago, my doctor became concerned because my HgA1c was running at 7.1 which threw me from the "borderline diabetic" category into the "you better start doing something about this now" category. My cholesterol was 234.

I bought two books that are not diet books. They are Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food." They discuss the very topic of the kinds of foods we eat, i.e. processed vs. fresh.

I changed the way I eat and the results of my next blood lab six months later showed my HgA1c had dropped to 5.1 and my cholesterol was down to 189...the first time in my adult life that it was under 200. My doctor was amazed. He said he'd never seen anyone reduce their numbers like that without having bariatric surgery.

If I veer from that way of eating, I can feel it. I'm tired and sluggish, my body aches, and I become depressed and crabby all over again.

I used to feel the same way many of you do. I loved fast food and I looked at processed food as inexpensive time savers, which they really are not. But once I got serious about it, I saw what is possible with regard to food and my health, and I really do love the way my healthy meals taste. Doesn't have to be anything fancy. Tonight I just steamed some fresh veggies and threw them over rice with a little soy sauce. It was fresh tasting and delicious. If I want to treat myself to a little sugary treat once in a while, I can. I've not given up anything but chemically produced food-like products, I've gained so much in the area of really excellent meals I love.

You can keep eating the trash the big agriculture and the food industry in this country pedal and the government subsidizes until you develop health problems that, depending on how bad they become before they are caught, you may or may not have the opportunity to turn around for the better. You can not learn to prepare good, healthy food until the market determines that you never will and one day there will be no real food available in the grocery stores. It's a really important and fundamental choice, especially for people who have children, to take the time to learn how to fuel your body properly.

I hope folks will get more savvy to this before we see more people having heart attacks, strokes and cancers and dying long before they have a chance to grow old. I've already lost too many friends too young.

:hug: :hi:

[XemaSab]

1. Michael Pollan is my baby-daddy

:D

[hippywife]

2. You wish!

:rofl:

[XemaSab]

6. I met him

He's cute. ;)

Here's a lecture I saw him give:

http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.asp?showID=14209

[hippywife]

12. Okay, now I'm really jealous!

He really did nail this poor health epidemic thing square where it lives.

[Mollis]

3. I like your story

:hi:
I am 18 and recently I have really made sure to eat the freshest and healthiest that I can, and to eat the least amount of processed food as possible. I, too, have quickly noticed a difference in my mood and the way I feel :D

[hippywife]

18. Mollis, I am so glad

you are getting a head start on this. Smart girl! :hug:

[Mollis]

19. I learned it from my dad.

His side of the family has very high blood pressure, many heart attacks and a stroke.
He was overweight for a while, then lost maybe...50 pounds.
I know I gotta get a head start :)
:hug:
Now...if only I can teach my brother (age 6). lol

[AlCzervik]

4. i didn't pay much attention until 2 things, Super size me and went i went to see my doctor

right before i turned 38 and got the numbers and they were bad, it forced me to embrace a new way of living that i wish i started 20 years earlier. Anyhow, numbers are all normal now and i'm down 90 pounds.

[hippywife]

8. Congratulations!

That is awesome! :hug:

[AlCzervik]

10. To you too!

i feel about a million times better now and i think it's setting a good example for my daughter.

[AwakeAtLast]

5. Great post, hippywife!

I tend to think there are a couple of generations that have lost the cooking 'gene'. The cycle has been broken by the convenience foods of the corporations. I'm so glad I made myself learn how to cook better than I learned from my Mom. She made decent meals, but they were definitely not 'slow food'. I'm getting better all the time!

BTW, I will be buying the Ain5 book as soon as next payday and can't wait to try it! We are lucky that the bread we buy is not made with HFCS, but I would rather try not buying it at all!

[hippywife]

9. That's really kind of where we started

was reading labels and avoiding certain ingredients. It wasn't a huge leap from there to making most everything we eat from scratch. Enjoy the book. :hi:

[LynzM]

20. Same here...

"Let's cut aspartame." "Let's cut HFCS." "Let's cut stuff that I can't identify what it is."

We've gradually, over the last 4 years, moved from frozen pizza and instant mashed potatoes to from-scratch cooking in many, many instances. I feel so much better about feeding my body whole, natural foods. :D

[hippywife]

21. Good for you guys!

Basically, if I had to boil down what Pollan recommends in three short phrases:

If your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize it, don't eat it.
Don't eat anything with ingredients you can't pronounce.
Eat food (real food). Not to much. Mostly plants.

Hope all is going well for the three of you. :hug:

[LynzM]

22. Heh.

Yep, that about nails it! Plus when I figured out that wheat was what was giving me most of my anxiety issues, and cut that out, it cut a HUGE portion of the processed foods I was eating / could eat. Much more now with fruits/veggies/nuts/cheeses. And rice-based stuff.

Things are going pretty well for us... I hope the same for you! :hug:

[hippywife]

24. Have you tried making your own

whole grain bread to see if you still have problems? I tried this one the last weekend and it was soft and delicious. It looks like a lot of work at first glance, but it's not at all:

http://www.bakingandbooks.com/2007/09/22/simplicity-48-hours-in-the-making/

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

7. I wish stuff from the Lounge could end up on the greatest page

[hippywife]

15. Thanx!

:hi:

[flvegan]

11. "...take the time to learn how to fuel your body properly."

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've posted that very thought here.

I'm glad that those excellent books helped you out. Congrats on your success!

[hippywife]

13. Thanx, flvegan.

I admit that we do still eat meat but definitely only a couple of times a week, and it's usually because of leftovers that we eat it more than once.

And I do admit that when I find myself cycling into that depression, my eating habits tend to worsen, but getting back to eating right in short order really does help.

Changing the thinking process from "Live to Eat" to "Eat to Live" is important. :hi:

[LostinVA]

14. Says Mr. Big Mac and Sir Twix

:eyes:

[TK421]

16. I'm not trying to pass along any medical knowledge here, so please don't get me

wrong. The last time I had routine blood-work my cholesterol was actually very low ( don't quote me, but it was well below 150 ). However, my blood pressure was high..I got that from my Dad ;)

But the one thing I noticed that during those four or five year that cholesterol count has remained steady...I have significantly DECREASED the number of starches I take into my diet. I also stopped eating anything at least 3 hours before bedtime. I don't know if that is useful info, but the doctor sure seemed pleased by it.

[hippywife]

17. I'm not trying to pass

along medical advice, either. Just experience. It still comes down to the everything in moderation approach, too. I know my body won't handle pasta and white bread everyday so I made the appropriate changes, but if I want a bit of pasta or some white bread now and again, I have it. I still eat things I'm told I shouldn't but I don't eat them everyday like I used to.

So basically, I've not eliminated anything from my diet, I just eat fresh ingredients and moderate how often I eat certain things.

I haven't taken care of everything yet. I still have HBP, but that is because of my nicotine addiction, which I am also working on. I think I will be able to do away with the meds as soon as I drop that habit completely and get off my lazy butt. I'm so glad the weather is getting nicer so I can get out and do more. :hi:

[Dangerously Amused]

23. Great post! And congrats on your success!

I haven't read the Pollan books yet, but I have been meaning to. Hmm, I think I will move them to the top of my library list.

[hippywife]

25. Good to see you, DA!

Hope you aren't too sad and lonely without your partner in crime. :hug: :hi:

[PVnRT]

26. Why do you have to be such an elitist?

TRUE liberals eat frozen pizza and macaroni and cheese. That's all poor people can really afford, after all. Why do you hate poor people so much, hypocrite?

:sarcasm:

[hippywife]

30. Look....

if I wanted a snarky thread I would have participated in the other one. Please don't turn this one into the shit storm the other one became.

I do understand the frustration tho.

[sniffa]

27. Great post

I'm sick of reading the whole, "poor people can't afford non-processed crap. What kind of liberal are you? Did you wander into the wrong forum?" garbage here.

I was raised in a city project where we were poor enough to get big blocks of cheese (once a month?). My parents would cook dinner every night and it usually involved lots of boxed ingredients and it generally wasn't that good save for Sunday Suppah which was almost always a from scratch meal. When I left the nest I cooked in a similar fashion and taught myself to cook. I did all of my shopping at the big box grocery store.

Now, I go to a produce market where prices are up to %75 less than Stop & Shop, and I go to their butcher or another butcher (that is cheaper) for meats. The amount and quality of our meals now (especially with the lower prices) is astronomical in comparison. These cheaper and fresher outlets are located in the city and on public transit routes.

[hippywife]

31. And as you and BiBaby have found out

it's loads of fun learning to be creative in the kitchen. It takes a little effort to pull everything together but worth it.


:hi:

[no name no slogan]

67. I'm sick of it too, but there is some point to it

Where I live (Mpls/St Paul), there are literally no grocery stores in the poor neighborhoods. None. If you want to go to a decent grocery store, you have to go a couple miles-- and then it's to one of the stores in a gentrified neighborhood, where the prices are higher. The last "regular" grocery store in downtown St Paul closed well over a decade ago, even though there are still a couple thousand people that live downtown. And I can't even remember the last time Minneapolis had a grocery store downtown (other than the SuperTarget attached to Target's corporate HQ, that is).

The bus system herer sucks after years of cutbacks, and we have no rail system to speak of (other than one line to DT Mpls from the Mall of America). To get anywhere, you need to take at least two buses. Going a few miles can literally take hours. The one-way fare is $2.00 off-peak, and cabs are also prohibitively expense for most working people ($10-15 for a normal trip to a grocery store).

There are no outdoor produce stands on the streets. It's too cold for most of the year to have outdoor farmers markets. And when we do, they're usually only open on weekends, when a lot of low-wage service employees are working. Their prices are not much cheaper than those of the supermarkets, either, unfortunately. The neighborhood stores (like the butchers and greengrocers) have disappeared, and all that's left are the big warehouse food stores, which are all located in the suburbs, and which cater to the suburban tastes (and pocketbooks).

A lot of people also just don't know how to cook. We don't require home economics classes in our schools anymore, so kids don't get exposed to how easy it is. Americans are working more hours than any other industrialized nation, and have less to show for it. They don't have time to cook fresh meals when they're barely able to keep their jobs and families together.

Instead of criticizing these people who don't (or even can't) cook the way we'd like them to, maybe we should do something constructive. Help them make good choices, teach them that there's a better way to cook, educate them about how they're poisoning themselves. Tearing them apart because they can't do something the right way isn't the way to help them. Giving them the tools they need to do the right thing, is.

[hippywife]

73. That's why I posted this thread.

The message was getting lost in the attitude.

I know what you're saying about the inner city. You just described Tulsa and any number of places you want to name. What's been good here is that there is a group that takes a farmers market right into downtown, and are setting up markets everywhere. Many producers for farm markets around the country also donate heavily to food pantries, but that doesn't solve the grocery store problem. I have seen many Latino groceries and bakeries opening up to fill the void which is great. Solves a couple of different problems at once, you know?

There are people that are aware of that inequity and are trying to address it but it doesn't get the press that other issues do. Maybe that's something you can organize to address in your own city.

:hi:

[no name no slogan]

78. And thanks for starting it, too!

We are seeing that more often in St Paul, with ethnic groceries coming into the inner city. We almost have a "Chinatown" of our own, just a few blocks west of the state capitol, no less. Every few years, you see it addressed in one of the local daily papers, which is good, but nothing ever seems to get done about it, as nobody wants to build a full-service grocery in a poor neighborhood.

I live in an inner city neighborhood (just west of downtown, where the RNC riots happened last September), but I live two blocks from a food co-op, a couple miles from a high-end grocery store that carries a lot of natural foods, and three miles from a Whole Foods, so I am truly blessed in that respect. Unfortunately, my neighbors on the other side of downtown don't have it as well.

I'd like to see the co-ops branch out into to some of the more working-class neighborhoods, because I think there's a need they could meet. Of course, with this economy, it's tough to see it happening any time soon.

[Kat45]

28. Thank you. I was going nuts trying to remember the name of that book.

Someone told me about it, and all I could remember was "The Omnivore's ______"; couldn't remember the author's name either. Now I'll be able to get it.

You'll probably find this interesting: I found out about the book from a man leading a group at our church. Meeting once a month, it is called "The Good Afternoons" and we talk about healthy foods, healthy living, etc. This particular man is retired and he's been researching this area for years and he's learned a lot of useful information. Our minister is a vegetarian is she also is very interested in healthy eating. People also bring different healthy foods to share at the meetings. When I'm unemployed (like now), I try to make it to the group.

(Unfortunately, I don't cook, which makes it difficult to incorporate as many ideas as I'd like to. The good news is that I'm started to get more interested in learning to cook.)

[hippywife]

32. Glad I was able to help.

You can check the books out at the library. That's what I did first. Then I bought several copies of each to give away.

I hope your job situation improves for you very soon. :hug:

[grace0418]

29. I hear ya sister. My husband was diagnosed with diabetes almost 3 years ago.

He weighed 235, had high cholesterol and an HgA1c of 8. something. We got to work (I'm not diabetic but was severely overweight). We practiced portion control. We replaced white bread, white rice and pasta with 100% whole grain. No more HFCS, no more processed crap. We started working out regularly. Within a year my husband's doctor was completely blown away. My husband was down to 155, his HgA1c was 4.8 I think, his cholesterol numbers were great. I lost 75 lbs and still have more to go, but I feel better than I have in years.

So I guess if those folks on the Sandra Lee flamefest want to call me a food snob, have at it.

[hippywife]

33. Wonderful!

I'm so happy for both of you. :hug:

[grace0418]

38. Thank you hippywife!

Being a food snob has paid off for me! :hug:

[hippywife]

49. I'd really like to take that label off of it.

It's not about being a food snob it's about eating the things that we are supposed to and not succumbing to the lure of the corporate crap that has very little food in it at all. That's the distinction and making that distinction is a matter of life and death, literally.

:hi:

[grace0418]

58. To me it's kinda like when people call me a

liberal in a very derisive tone. The difference is that liberal is NOT negative in definition, just used negatively. Food snob is definitely negative. However, I'm choosing to say fine, if that makes me a food snob, so be it. I've been called worse. I notice a lot people who laughed at me when I said no to a lot of foods a few years ago are now asking me all kinds of questions about my diet now.

[flying rabbit]

34. Do you have some sort of recipe book

you could recommend?

[hippywife]

35. You might want to

maybe look at some of Mark Bittman's current recipes. Also, come on over to the Cooking and Baking Group here at DU and hang out. We're always working on something from the simple to the complex. LOL Everyone there is very supportive and helpful, too.

I'm fortunate that I already had the basics of cooking under my belt. And the transition at first wasn't easy. But eventually I was able to swing away from a primarily meat based diet to one that included more vegetables. The best thing to do is try to keep it simple. For example, I just stir-fried a bunch of veggies last night and threw them over some long grain brown rice and splashed with a little soy sauce. No other seasonings or anything, altho that wouldn't hurt, either. It was really fresh and delicious.

:hi:

[flying rabbit]

36. Thanks for the reply

I too am trying to get off of the processed food cycle. My skills in the kitchen are slowly starting to evolve lungs, and may eventually walk on land! I have lurked in the CB group and I must say it is the most civil place on this board.
Mark Bittman. Will check him out.
:hi:

[hippywife]

37. Hard to have an argument

with your mouth full. :rofl:

Glad you're working on it. You might search the web for Bittman's recipes. He does a NYT column so there are plenty out there. The best thing is to try what seems easiest to you and then build from there if your confidence in cooking is a little shaky.

Good luck! :hi:

[Gormy Cuss]

47. hippywife! I'm quoting you on that.

:D

See sig

[hippywife]

53. LOL!

If I would have known someone was going to do that, I'd have said real food or healthy food. :rofl:

You crack me up, Gormy! :hi: :hug:

[grace0418]

39. I tend to find recipes I know I like and then adapt them. But I've learned a few tips

if you're interested. If you're looking for recipes, I was surprised to find that many recipes in Cooking Light magazine are not too bad, and can be adapted to be even healthier.

Anyway, one easy tip is this: substitution can make most recipes much healthier. Try replacing white rice with brown rice. Many restaurants even offer this as an option now. Replace pasta and bread with 100% whole grain pasta and bread. The 100% whole grain part is key, because many, many breads out there say "whole wheat" or "multi-grain". The problem is that companies can put that label on their bread even if the bread is 99% refined white flour and 1% whole wheat. That's when reading labels becomes very important. If you're near a Trader Joe's, their sprouted grain breads are FANTASTIC (and I was a person who hated the idea of switching to bread full of "branches and twigs"), low cal, low carb, high fiber. Replace white potatoes with sweet potatoes. Forget marshmallows, just roast them to bring out their natural sweetness and mash them with a little extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of salt, and chili powder. The spicy kick is a great counterpoint to the rich sweetness. Replace iceberg lettuce with baby spinach or arugula or mesclun to get more nutrition from your salads. Replace refined white sugar with agave nectar, and use less. It's all natural, low-glycemic (good for diabetics), and tastes so much better than any of those awful fake sweeteners.

Get to know the "superfoods" and eat them often. Some are beans, berries, tofu, walnuts, almonds, kale and other dark greens, broccoli, yogurt (not the stuff with oreo cookies, of course), salmon, oats, flax seed meal, garlic, sweet potatoes, avocado, tomato. The lists vary a bit, but I find these foods on most lists. Fortunately, I really like many of these foods, so it's really not such a hardship to work them into my diet.

Lastly, here's a few tricks, if not full on recipes...

Thicken soups and sauces with pureed beans. I buy cans of beans when they're on sale and keep them around for convenience when I don't have time to cook them from dried. I just take the lid off, stick my immersion blend right in the can, and puree them. If you don't have an immersion blender, you can process them or use a regular blender, but ask for an immersion blender on your next birthday. They are a wonderful, incredibly useful tool for making lots of healthy dishes. Anyway, back to the puree...just pour it into your soup or sauce to get the desired thickness and added health benefits.

Sprinkle flax see meal over just about anything, yogurt, salad, soup, cereal. It's incredibly good for you and has a nutty taste and texture.

Chop veggies into bite-size chunks. Carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, squash, asparagus, brussels sprouts, eggplant, beets, cauliflower, almost any veggie you like will work. Toss with extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh or dried herbs that you like, and lay them out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment. Put in the oven anywhere from 350 to 400, if you're baking something else, you just have to watch them. Roast until they are soft and nicely caramelized. Put them in a big bowl on the table. People will DEVOUR them. They are good hot, cold and room temperature. Leftovers are good in salads, wraps and pasta sauces.

Used mashed avocado instead of mayonnaise. It's still got calories, so use sparingly, but it's got a lot more nutrition and healthy fats.

[hippywife]

40. While I am aware of what I'm eating

I pay no attention to carbs and fats, etc. I do read labels as you said on the bread and actually everything, but I don't read any of the numbers on the nutritional chart at all.

I simply susbscribe to Pollan's tenets as I listed above and that does the trick:

1.)If your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food, don't eat it.
2.)Don't eat anything with ingredients you can't pronounce.
3.)Eat food (real food). Not too much. Mostly plants.

I find that if you follow these simple ideas, the rest of what you would normally worry about takes care of itself.

:hi:

[grace0418]

59. I don't pay much attention to that either these days, but sometimes specifics help

people just getting started. My husband counts his carbs a little more closely (not religiously) in order to keep his blood sugar at an even keel. Because even super healthy foods need to be combined in a smart way when you're diabetic.

But yes, on the whole I agree with you.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

42. if you are starting at cooking from scratch, i strongly recommend bittmans

how to cook everythign. easy recipes, from scratch and his approach to food is very similar to pollans.

[flying rabbit]

80. Just read the review.

I am going to check this book out further. Thanks!

[Witchy_Dem]

71. Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.

Amazon Link

Highly recommended.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

41. i love pollan.

[hippywife]

44. Hard to beat the combination of

Pollan and Bittman for healthy eating that doesn't maek you feel deprived. :hi:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

46. yup. though i have to say i have not lost any weight :)

still i think we are doing well on other counts of health

[hippywife]

48. I did for awhile

then went through a spell of depression because I lost two more friends to cancer and was eating all the wrong stuff and gained it back, so I'm working on it again.

Still gotta get to exercising and getting a little more mobile. Now that spring is here it should be easier.

[geardaddy]

43. K and R

Thank you for posting this!

[hippywife]

45. Happy to do it!

It's important that people realize that the corporate comfort food they've been lulled into eating is what is driving up health care and causing so much disease and death.

Some things are obvious, but there is so much that is not and has been traditionally available as food for too many generations now.

:hi:

[geardaddy]

50. We have reduced our intake of "convenience foods"

quite a bit and shop for organics and locally produced food (when possible). We also shop at our co-op (the largest in the country, I believe). So, I know where you're coming from.

:hi:

[hippywife]

51. I shop our local coop, too.

I know it's expensive to do that and buy organic food and not everyone can afford to do that but if everyone would at least get all their nourishment from the perimeter of the store and stay out of the middle as much as possible, except for staple items, the change would be incredible!

If the government would stop subsidizing the rest of the stuff so heavily, hiding the true cost of food, maybe the real family farms that grow sustainably would survive.

[Inchworm]

52. Thanks Hippywife

:yourock:

[hippywife]

54. Thanx, Inchie.

You rock, too. It's been pretty interesting (and not totally unamusing) to watch you delve into the gardening and cooking projects. :hug:

[Inchworm]

66. Note: salt is mandatory for bread

Hehe, I tried a batch with salt substitute yesterday. I either completely forgot to add the sugar, which I don't think was the case, or regular salt does some sort of magic when it bakes.

The results were bland. Hmm.. the description there just might 'splain it :D

:crazy:

:hug:

[hippywife]

75. That is very true.

I forgot to put it in a batch of bagels once. They were less than spectacular, that's for sure. LOL

[Marrah_G]

55. I know what you are saying and I agree fresh is by far the best

But it always makes me feel incredibly guilty during weeks like this week where I had to stretch 50 bucks to feed my teenage boys and myself. Lots of crap life spagetti, mac n cheese, hot dogs, ramen noodles.... I have to not think about it too much or the guilt eats at me.

[hippywife]

56. I know it can be hard.

I'm at work right now but can you let me think on it a little and maybe come up with some ideas that would work on your budget? I would love to help you work through it so you don't need to worry about the guilt. :hug:

[Marrah_G]

64. Some weeks are just tougher then others.

Most weeks I manage to cook all fresh (not always organic though), some weeks more organic (if I have extra cash) and other weeks, like this week, stuff breaks and has to be replaced (sump pump, flooded basement) and there goes the weekly budget.

We could eat potatoes and carrots all week but the boys might turn on me....LOL

It's the unexpected weeks that kill me. The boys love packaged crap and like most teenage boys they think Ramen is just the best thing since the wheel.

I just remind myself to be grateful that they are not hungry :)

Edit: my older boy does the shopping with me and while we shopped this week were were discussing this very topic. His history teacher had a discussion on outside aisle and inside aisle shopping: The outsides are fresh and more expensive, the more into the center you go the cheaper and more processed it gets.

[hippywife]

76. I'm glad it's only a temporary problem,

and it sounds like you do well the rest of the time without my help. LOL Please come by the Cooking and Baking Group here sometime, especially when you need ideas. :hi:

Now if only it wasn't a permanent state of being for so many people here and around the world. :(

[redqueen]

61. Are you really telling us all the insults didn't help you at all?

Well imagine that.

That's what makes people think they've wandered into the wrong forum... not the fact that people want others to eat healthy foods... it's the nasty, condescending, shitty attitude.

[hippywife]

69. Hi, RQ!

That's why I posted this. I didn't want a very good message to be drowned out in all the snark. :hi:

[redqueen]

70. Glad you did!

Precisely - a good message is lost / made worthless once you start putting the intended audience on the defensive.

:hi:

[hippywife]

74. Ed Zachary!

Doesn't matter how good the message is if you're making the other person in the conversation feel like shit.

:hi:

[Arugula Latte]

57. Good post!

We do a lot of from-scratch cooking here. We eat lots of veggies and fruits. I haven't eaten red meat since I was a teen (I'm 43 now). We do eat some processed stuff like crackers (frankly, they're so convenient when you have kids). I get a lot of my protein from eggs, nuts and beans, with a little bit of seafood.

I'm currently looking to increase the cooking we do from the bulk bins -- make batches of healthy, cheaper stuff from things like dried beans, whole grains, etc. Does anyone have any good recipes?

:hi:

[hippywife]

60. Come hang out and hunt through

the Cooking and Baking Group for ideas. Just post and ask. Folks there are always willing to help out with really creative ideas that aren't difficult at all. :hi:

[gmoney]

62. who has time to shop, prepare, cook, and clean up 3x a day?

Maybe I was raised wrong, but I just don't see how real people do it. Especially if you're trying to stick to fresh foods.

Plus I have lounge posts to keep up on!

[hippywife]

63. It does take planning. I won't tell you it doesn't.

I do a lot of my cooking and preparing for the week on the weekends so I can pack our lunches and have things ready for at least a dinner or two if I want something that takes time to prepare. Otherwise, it takes no time at all to throw together a salad of different kinds of greens with lovely chopped fruits and veggies of all kinds. It took around 45 minutes last night to make a stir-fry of fresh broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, carrots with brown rice, and splash a little soy sauce on it (that's only because it wasn't instant rice.)

It takes the will to want to do it is all it really takes. :hi:

[Marrah_G]

65. I cook alot on sundays to take the pressure off during the week.

I also love my crock pot and use it often. We live on alot of soups and stews.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

68. i cook once a day. i eat dinner leftover for lunch at work.

i eat a granola bar/oatmeat for breakfast

[myrna minx]

72. Wonderful thread. Thank you so much for posting. n/t

[hippywife]

77. Thanx for coming by

myrna. :hi:

[tigereye]

79. thanks for sane reasoning...

[hippywife]

81. You're welcome, tigereye.

:hi: