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Eliminating Processed Foods Series—our month long challenge part 5

amy / 08/13/2014

8. Work on replacing foods each month that I buy as a “convenience food”.

This has been a fun one to do. I am always up for the challenge of making new foods. If I can cut down our grocery bill by doing it and the benefits of knowing it is GOOD for my family not full of chemicals—then all the better.

How I did this was I started taking note of things that we buy A LOT of. Things that were in little packages. Those little things that added up on my grocery bill. Some of the first things that I noticed we bought much of and I KNEW it wasn’t very good for my family were:

2014 04 17 00154 300x225 150x150 large family food ideas

Chicken bouillon—this was my “go-to” spice. Whenever I needed to spice up my macaroni and cheese, I would add chicken bouillon. If I needed to flavor my soups more, I would add chicken bouillon. Mashed potatoes, pasta, just about everything tasted better with chicken bouillon. I had to find an alternative. Which I did.

This recipe is made with nutritional flakes. I was concerned that maybe I would spend more for the “homemade” version verses the store bought kind, but the cost is similar. And guess what?? I have STOPPED flavoring everything with chicken bouillon. That Parmesan cheese container full will last me a few months. Where if it was filled with sodium-rich, preservative filled chicken bouillon, I would have used it up within 2 weeks!!

Click here for my version of homemade chicken bouillon.

Taco seasoning—-this was another item that we would buy much of each month. We could easily purchase 6-8 packets per month. If you look at the ingredients listed on the package–it is an easy fix to make it yourself MINUS all the preservatives and “extras.”

This version is “hot.” That benefits me because we usually make taco’s for dinner. In our family we could easily go through 4-5lbs of hamburger if everyone is having one. To cut down, I decided to pull out my homemade refried beans and offer burritos for some of the children as well. The taco seasoning is “hotter” tasting so my little ones prefer the refried beans.

You can scale back on the cayenne pepper if too spicy. If you mess up and it is too spicy, just add some more of the ingredients to your mix and it will make it not so spicy. Click here for our version of taco seasoning.

Ranch mix—this was one of those items that we would buy each month and I did not like spending the extra $5 just to flavor those few extra dishes. We use ranch mix in spinach dip, to mix with sour cream to make a veggie dip, or added to mashed potatoes to perk up the flavor. That is about all we use it for. I make a large 4 cup container and it has lasted us 2-3 months. Click here for our version.

Okay, now that I was on a roll making these items, I kept going. I started looking at my pantry shelves and seeing what it was I could make instead of buy.

Here was my “full pantry.” This was after shopping for the month and having some items stored up. I liked the satisfaction of having my shelves full of food. Made me feel good. Then I realized this was all canned, preservative filled, and some–convenience food. What was I thinking?

I started with my cream soups. I like to buy a half of a box of soups per month to help mix into my recipes like Salisbury steak, burrito casserole, and tater tot casserole. This was something I definitely wanted to replace because whatever was in that can, cannot be as good as homemade. I started searching, most recipes that I found were ones that you have to mix it up right then. I still wanted the convenience of a can but with the knowledge that it was “homemade and perservative free.”

Our version is a dry powder mix and I store it in my freezer in a plastic container. Whenever I need my cream soups, I mix up a little. Click here for cream soup recipe.

I only make cream of mushroom soup and cream of chicken soup. For the chicken I would add 1 Tablespoon of chicken bouillon. For the mushroom one, I have frozen diced mushrooms that I use. I used an ice cube tray, froze them, and popped them into a plastic baggie. Whenever I need to make cream of mushroom soup, I pull out the cube from my plastic bag in the freezer and add it to my liquid.

Bacon bits– This was another downfall that my children, and I love. We really like to sprinkle it on eggs for a quick perk. We also love making pizza’s on pita bread for lunches and this with some tomatoes and Parmesan cheese is really good. But bagged bacon, how can that be good?

For 1, we don’t usually buy pork products as I know they are not good for you. For 2, the price is ridiculous just for the convenience. So, why did we buy it? I don’t know, but I had to stop. Buying 5-8 bags per month, is wasteful. I decided to make my own. I don’t usually make bacon, because it takes awhile to make, plus the mess involved.

What I did, was I bought my turkey bacon and made ALL of it, in one day. I cooked my strips and put them in plastic bags to freeze for BLT sandwiches another day. The rest of the bacon, I put in the food processor and then put in containers. Now, I have homemade bacon bits. These work great in the freezer, because of the grease, they easily break apart. You can pull out what you need and put the rest back in for later.

Baking powder– I stopped buying deodorant that had aluminum in it, but I was still using baking powder for ALL of my baking and guess what? It has aluminum in it. You can easily make your own version without it. Click here for recipe.

If I look at my pantry and look for those “packaged staple items,” we don’t have much more. The only other items that we buy packaged would be:

jello
pudding
cake mix
frosting
ice cream cones
graham crackers

These items would only be bought for special occasions and parties. Not a staple item, more of an easy treat.

Now that we have eliminated our dry mixes, keep watching for how we keep purging from our convenience food mentality. part 6

Eliminating Processed Foods Series—our month long challenge part 4

amy / 08/12/2014

Okay, now that you got to see our first week’s menu for the month let’s go back to how we started slowly moving away from processed foods.

1. Eliminate white flour, sugar, bread and pasta

We have already replaced our white flours and sugars. I do buy white buns for hamburgers and hot dogs. I will be making my own buns for hamburgers the next time we have them. Hot dogs are a food we used to eat much of, but I limit it to once per month this year. I don’t feel too bad about feeding my children white hot dog buns for the once a month treat.

One of our next goals will be to switch to whole wheat pasta. I am not sure how that will go, as we have tried it before and thought it was a “gummy” texture. Hopefully this next time around it will be better. I still have much pasta on our shelf, as we used to eat ALOT of it, but have since not been eating it as much, we will get there.

2. Replace sugary drinks and sodas with water

My husband really likes to drink pop. It was a staple in our household each week. I don’t drink it, so it doesn’t concern me, but I know if there was some open in the house, my children would drink it. We have since stopped buying it and save it for special occasions. We don’t drink flavored sugary drinks except for special occasions. I buy apple juice for the little ones and water it down 1 part juice to 2 parts water. They only get a cup in the morning for breakfast and then we drink water the rest of the day.

I myself like to put a peppermint teabag in my water bottle and let it flavor my water. I change it out every 2 days. My only other “guilty pleasure” is coffee. I LOVE it and would prefer to stop drinking so much of it. We use instant coffee and creamer. I would love to find a homemade version of creamer, but grew tired of trying new recipes and wasting them. I need one that is fat free and not so heavy. I don’t want it to taste like milk. Any suggestions???

I just acquired my first kombucha starter. I am excited about this, as I have learned about the health benefits and can’t wait to try it. Only a few more days. (I will do a post on it!)

3. Avoid packaged foods ~~with more than 5 ingredients~~ with lots of ingredients.

There are some things that we just can not make. Well, we could make them but we don’t want to traumatize our family with our version of homemade mustard. I originally thought no more than 5 ingredients but I started looking at some of the stuff that we still buy like mustard, ketchup, and mild pepper rings. Some have like 6 ingredients, so I didn’t want to be lying when I said I cut those out, we are just looking to simplify and get rid of the bad ones, if I can make it, I will do that.

4. Replace fake margarine’s and vegetable oils with real butter and olive/coconut oils.

This wasn’t too hard, as we have been doing this for a long time.

5. Replace table salt with sea salt

We already do this. I buy the iodized salt and use it for cleaning purposes only.

6. Replace snack foods with fresh fruits and veges

This has been a harder one for my children. We do baking once per week, usually and I USED to always make a big batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, energy bites,or Monster cookies. I would then freeze them and each day at snack time, pull them out to eat them. But we have NOT been making this for the last few months. I decided to have plenty of veges and fruit cut up to eat.

I also made a homemade trail mix and kids snack mix to help with the snacky needs. This stuff they haven’t taken a liking to as easily. I offer a few pieces each day and they will learn to like it eventually.

We used to have snack time each morning but have since dropped it. When you feed your children good, quality meals, there is no need to snack. They can last till lunch time. Sometimes in the afternoon, I know they are hungry and will allow whatever we have on hand. Sometimes it is bread and jam, frozen grapes, celery and peanut butter, hard boiled eggs, or hummus and veges. All of those choices are from a homemade source, nothing processed.

Each evening, popcorn is a good, healthy snack to air pop for everyone.

This doesn’t mean that we will NEVER make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins again, we will just make them more of a treat instead of a regular monthly thing.

7. Stop eating out and start making meals.

This one, we got figured out over the last few years. Taking a large family out to dinner is expensive. We did many weekends at our local pizza buffet during the winter months, when they were little, just to get me out of the house, but those “needed” days are gone. Seems we reserve this for about once per month. Not a problem in our family.

We did buy the $5 pizzas A LOT when we would be out and about driving and needed to feed the children as it was cheap and easy. But I am getting better at grabbing foods to fill our bellies while we do a day outing. My husband says “let’s go!” and my girls and I can have a cooler packed and ready to go in about 5 minutes. We usually make peanut butter and honey sandwiches or wraps with lunchmeat. I grab whatever fruit or vegetables we have on hand, cut up. If we have a treat like cookies in the freezer or even a box of graham crackers leftover in the pantry, we grab those as well. That makes the temptation for grabbing treats less by just bringing my own. We ALWAYS grab our water bottles as well. Making sure everyone has a drink.

continued…...part 5