Several people have asked me: "What DO you eat?!"
This question always makes me chuckle. We do not eat meat often (only a few times per month), we limit dairy, we do not eat white refined sugar, or high fructose corn syrup, or processed/refined foods, or chemicals, or hormones, or antibiotics, or pesticides, or steroids, or GMOs. Okay, so, what do we normally eat?
Real. Whole. Food.
Simple as that.
We say no to: processing, chemical preserving, refining, genetically modifying, chemically treating and hormone/antibiotic/steroid injecting.
No, we're not food snobs...
We simply just want to eat all that good stuff that God made for food.
Not all of that stuff that man-made and then decided to call... "food".
We will eat "man-made food" if that is what's being served at a friend or relative's house, or social gathering, but 99% of the time we eat 'clean'.
Yes, it can seem daunting to eat 'clean' - - it takes time to carefully read product labels, research ingredients and prepare meals from scratch. If I can't find an item that meets our 'clean', whole food criteria, then we simply don't eat it that week. Yes, it requires creative adaptation of recipes at times (like the several times I haven't been able to find organic kale, so I've substituted with organic spinach instead). But, eating 'clean' can be done!
Personally, it does not cost us anymore to eat whole God-made foods.. because, when we consume plant-based protein-rich foods that are full of fiber and complex carbohydrates - like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lentils, beans, legumes and nuts - we end up feeling full longer than when we consume processed & refined foods that are only calorie-dense but contain almost no nutritional value. When simple, refined carbohydrates are eaten (like refined white sugar, breads, white pastas & rice), they wreak havoc on satiety (that "full-feeling") causing rises and falls in our blood sugar, which triggers hunger very frequently. Point in case: we don't need to eat as much food and as often when we consume whole foods, which means less money spent in the grocery store!
Here's a "Typical" Day of Food (my husband & son's are pretty much the same):
• When I wake up, I drink 16 oz. of water (that's a pint glass size = 2 cups of water), and I take my vitamins for the day.
I drink about 10 cups of water per day (that's 80 ounces).
Water: we should drink about half of our body weight in ounces. So, if you weigh 200 lbs, you should drink 100 ounces of water (that's about 12 cups per day). If you are physically active or live in a hot climate, you may need to drink more.
Breakfast
Oats with fresh blueberries, raw honey, cinnamon, cacao nibs and unsweetened flax milk. Sometimes I will also eat a banana.
Cacao nibs
Some days [instead of oatmeal], I'll scramble 2 eggs and add fresh cilantro to them... yum!
After I eat breakfast, I allow myself 1-cup of coffee with just a splash of skim milk or a splash of flax milk.
Mid-Morning Snack
Apple cut into slices with nut-butter (just plain ground peanuts - no added sugar or salt or oils).
8 oz. of water
Lunch
Large salad: mesclun greens, baby spinach, half of a pear or apple sliced, handful of raw walnuts, handful of raw sunflower seeds, sprouts, and a drizzle of balsamic. (Some days, I put all of that salad into a whole wheat or sprouted grain wrap smeared with hummus.)
Carrot sticks
Sometimes I will also eat fresh berries or a piece of fruit.
16 oz. of water
Mid-Day Snack
Handful of nuts (usually raw walnuts or raw cashews)
Either a piece of citrus fruit like an orange ~or~ or a fresh fruit salad (strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, etc) that has been drizzled with raw honey & cinnamon.
Occasionally, I will have fresh-dairy yogurt.
16 oz. of water
Dinner
Whatever I have planned for that week - see my recipes HERE
16 oz. of water
We usually like to follow dinner by juicing (juice is kind-of like "dessert" to us). Usually we juice a combo of kale, spinach, beets, broccoli or cauliflower, carrots and apple... and we add either pomegranate juice, aloe vera juice, or spirulina.
Night-time Snack
If I'm in the mood, sometimes I will have a cup of tea.
We like to snack on stove-top popcorn made with organic corn and grapeseed oil.
~or~ celery with nut or seed butter
Water
What does your Typical Day of Food look like?
We eat lots of whole food - but still do store bought/processed stuff like peanut butter and jelly, etc. We eat meat, and eventually would like to stock up on grass fed and free range cuts.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing wrong with store-bought foods... it's the ones that are filled with preservatives, fillers, artificial flavors, chemicals, etc. that aren't good for us :) We also have store bought peanut butter but use an organic brand that contains *only* peanuts.
DeleteA good rule of thumb that we use is: nothing out of a box, can, bag, bottle or package that has more than 5 ingredients listed on the label, along with nothing white (no bleached flour, white pasta, white rice or white refined sugars including any form of corn syrup, cane juice, or the artificial stuff like Splenda and aspartame).