Last night I was flipping through one of my Cooking Light magazines and found a recipe for monkey bread that had been adapted to reduce sodium, yeah I said sodium. What? I had never thought about the sodium, I was busy worrying about the sugar content and fat content in our baked goods. I knew convenience foods usually contain a ton of sodium, but Pillsbury biscuits? Really? I started thinking about that. We have tried to limit the amount of boxed foods mostly for environmental reasons, and usually buy low sodium, fat free, etc. when we do get them. We watch for MSG and try to limit junk food, but it isn't always easy. Who has the time to mix, knead, and cut biscuits anyway? Ok maybe you do, but I don't. Well, maybe I do, but I don't have the energy. Wait, if I don't have the energy, then why am I making monkey bread? Awe heck. Ok, it's not that hard to make biscuits from scratch, I get it.
I realized I need to make some small weekly and monthly goals based on my bigger resolutions. So, we want to eat healthier. (Gotta get through all the left over holiday junk food, I just can't bring myself to throw it away.)
Healthy Eating Goal #1
- Give 2 dinners a week a "healthy makeover" and try 1 new healthy recipe; blog about it.
http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/grands-monkey-bread/7a1e41b1-4708-4028-8ce6-fcb5baebbc19/
And here's the Cooking Light Monkey Bread make over:
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/monkey-bread-50400000115833/
Darren and I talked about playing with substituting Splenda to cut back the sugar.
Remember how I said I wanted screen time to be more educational? Ok, it could be heathier too and the kids reminded me of that by asking to play Wii Fit this morning instead of watching cartoons! YAY!!
Do you have some ideas about some goals we could make? Or how about some healthy recipes?
My #1 healthy eating habit that I share with anyone who's dumb enough to engage me in a conversation about it is this: Make "white foods" the exception rather than the rule. That means limit your intake of white flour, white sugar, white rice, white potatoes and anything that is made with those ingredients. If you do that then you'll find that you're eating a lot more food the way it comes from nature and you'll feel so much better.
ReplyDeleteThe things I try to strive for when cooking are -
ReplyDelete*Less processed foods
*More fresh or natural foods
*Lower sodium
*Low Fat
*High in fiber
*Natural seasonings, not packaged
But as you and I both know that these are goals and not always achieved. I also try making my meals healthier ones. I love using allrecipes.com and cooks.com and looking at 2-4 recipes for the same meal and making my own healtier meal out of it. I have to be realistic about cooking for the entire family. If I was just cooking for me it would be a lot easier but making something healthy that everyone will actually will eat is another story. I also agree with Lynda. I have over the last 7 years changed to whole wheat or whole grain bread, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, and only occasionally do we eat potatoes and I top baked potatoes with cottage cheese, no butter or salt.