Time-Consuming Kitchen

So this healthy thing has been pretty great. I think it has mostly affected our breakfasts, snacks, and less of our lunch and dinner. We constantly eat fruit, nuts, cheese, etc for snacks because we had this idea to take the top shelf of our smallest cabinet and put the shelf at the closest peg to the top we could and that is our junk spot. We can only have that much junk and it's hard to get to so we eat it less often. We also make our own breakfast sandwiches and smoothies or grab some mixture of nuts/fruits/cheese and a protein bar for breakfast. Luna bars are our favorite. and they may not be the healthiest in the world but they are way better than the pop tarts we used to eat on late days. So in this sense we are being so much better. Lunches have been hard because we are on campus alllllllll the time. seriously. or we are running from place to place and don't have time to sit down and have a "proper" lunch. We often eat sandwiches, wraps, salads, etc from the campus diner or a sandwich place of some sort. Not way healthy because we of course have condiments but better than pizza. And dinners have become stressful. We plan it out and go shopping at winco every week but by the time we get home it's so late and we are so tired that cooking doesn't sound fun. quick easy dinners are usually unhealthy and we have yet come across a good way of doing quick meals. So usually we eat around like 8-9 pm. (Italians do that and they are healthy but idk about us, we go to bed so early that our bodies can't process it? idk.) And we bought this way yummy natural eating cook book. But we can never find all the ingredients it calls for. silly Idaho. So we have been looking for a way to still be healthy and organic and la la la see the previous posts for "details"... And today!!! I came across a pin on pintrest that had freezer meals. so genius right? the only problem is what can and can't you freeze. I would take 6 hours on a Saturday to prepare meals for a month! and then only have to truly cook in an oven or on a stove and have so much less mess to clean up every night. (Jake would like it because he would have less dishes to do!!) So now we are thinking of being this super organized healthy easy couple. ahhhhhhhhh! I read this blog about this lady who does it and she cooks with a lot of meat (like the rest of the world) but that's not the way the WOW (Word of Wisdom) says to eat and it's not soo healthy. So maybe some recipes could be halved in meat portions and doubled in veggies. There's this book called, Don't Panic Dinners in the Freezer that we are thinking about getting. Any experiences of any sort with freezer meals. I think it sounds great for the busy lifestyle we have if we can remember to thaw it before we leave in the morning... oh and jake is getting a perm. for real. someday.

So far So good

Our healthy life style officially began this last week. We've decided the best way to make this change is by weening ourselves off of the old life style. We cleaned out our junk cabinet and then made a really small shelf and decided that is the only junk food we can have. Because we can't not have junk in our house, but the less there is and the higher up it is so I can't reach it, the less likely we are to eat it. hopefully. Also we are changing a few of the rules. Because as much as we don't want to eat preservatives, we are still in college and it's impossible to have the time to cook lunch and dinner every day. So we might eat some of those things that no normal person would have in their cabinet because of time concerns. But it's still healthier than before. Same goes with the food that will eventually rot.. I think almost anything will go bad after some amount of time so we've decided that it is a silly rule. And I think that's all. It's been good so far, when we are snacky we eat nuts or fruits or veggies. The hardest part is breakfast. We have yogurt with granola a lot but we need some other quick breakfast ideas... anyone?

We're Crazy About Health!!

As our new years resolution we have decided it is time to be healthy!! Jake first proposed that we should be vegetarians but I vetoed that quickly because I don't eat beans or drink milk, or eat yogurt or cheese often so I would lack in protein immensely. It provoked the thought in my mind to be raw. If you aren't sure what eating raw is it's this (click on the "this"). We thought about it a lot and started to lean very much toward it. And then after much research I got into the nitty gritty of it. Many people go on and on about how healthy it is and how it changed their life blah blah blah, then I began reading review after review of how their energy was just diminished. I quickly researched the pro's and con's of being raw and learned that many of the nutrients of plants come from them being heated to 180 degrees at which point they release many helpful nutrients. My jaw dropped and I decided against being totally Raw. Jessi (Jake's sister) texted me at the perfect time the title of a book she had read? her friend read? something.. Anyways I did some research and found out it was a shorter less scientifically detailed version of a previous book the author had written before. So I bought it on my new kindle fire! and read it from cover to end. I loved it and Jake loved it. We are converted. It is a great way to be healthy without freaking out about health. It has about 64 "rules" that it suggests but I think even if you picked 2 a month to focus on you would be healthier. The book is called Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Micheal Pollan. It's like 10 bucks on amazon and if your news years resolution is to be healthly like majority of America's I recommend this. Now, I am not saying it works, because I just finished reading the book but the rules all seem to be reasonable and like something that is common sense so I think it will work great for Jake and I this semester with a few changes here and there. I did not adopt all of the rules he stated and switched some wording that I liked better but here is what Jake and I are hoping to do in order to be healthier this year and forever. Food Rules 1. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants 2. Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food 3. Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry 4. Avoid food products that contain high fructose corn syrup 5. Sugar is sugar 6. Avoid foods that have some form of sugar or sweetener in the top 3 ingredients. (barley malt, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, cane juice, corn sweetner, dextrin, dextrose, fructo-oligosaccharides, fruit juice, concentrate, glucose, sucrose, invert sugar, polydextrose, tubinado sugar..) 7. Avoid food products that make health claims 8. Avoid food products with the wordoid lite, low fat, non fat. 9. Avoid foods you see advertised on tv 10. Shop the outsides of the grocery store 11. Eat only foods that will eventually rot (Real food is alive and should eventually die) 12. Eat foods made from ingredients that you can picture in their raw state or growing in nature 13. Buy your snacks at the farmers market 14. Eat only foods that have been cooked by humans 15. If it came from a plant eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t. 16. It’s not food if it is called by the same name in every language 17. Eat mostly plants especially leaves 18. Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food 19. Eating what stands on one leg is better than two legs which is better than four legs. 20. Eat your colors!! 21. Drink the spinach water (use the left over water from cooking veggies for sauces or soups) 22. If you have the space buy a freezer 23. Eat organic and local 24. Eat some foods that have been predigested (yogurt, soy sauce, and sourdough bread) 25. Sweeten and salt your food, yourself 26. Don’t drink your sweets 27. Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of your milk 28. The whiter your bread the sooner you’ll be dead (white flour is not much different than sugar) 29. Favor the kinds of oils and grains that have traditionally been stone ground (olive, sesame, palm fruit, peanut oils) 30. Eat all the junk food you want, as long as you cook it yourself 31. Regard non-traditional foods with skepticism (processed; chips, packaged foods, etc.) 32. Have a glass of grape juice with dinner 33. Pay more, eat less (better to pay the grocer than the doctor) 34. … eat less 35. Stop eating before you are full (between 67-80 percent full)(ask your elf, is my hunger gone? Not am I full) 36. Eat when your hungry, not when your bored 37. Consult your gut (slow down and pay attention to your body, your eyes are bigger than your stotmach) 38. Eat slowly 39. Put down your fork between bites 40. Buy smaller plates and glasses (you can over eat by 30% with larger dishes, the smaller the dish, the smaller the portion) 41. Serve a proper portion and don’t go back for seconds (animals portion shouldn’t be bigger than your fist, don’t eat more in a meal than can fit into both cupped hands, if going back for seconds wait a few minutes first) 42. After lunch sleep a while, after dinner walk a mile 43. Eat meals, not snacks 44. Limit your snacks to unprocessed plant foods 45. Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does 46. Do all your eating at a table 47. When eating somewhere other than a table stick to fruits and veggies 48. Try not to eat alone 49. Treat treats as treats 50. “s-rules” no snacks, seconds, or sweets, except on days that begin with the letter s 51. Leave something on your plate 52. Plant a vegetable garden or window box 53. Cook 54. Break the rules once in a while