Here is a break in our series, I will continue next week in this series on how we make the switch from processed foods to whole foods but I want to take a break and give you our weekly food menu to see how we implement changes.
Week 2 eliminating processed foods menu
Sunday
breakfast-–french toast sticks. We have church and usually, I just make breakfast burritos and then we take them in the car, but today was a smooth day. The children were up in plenty of time to eat these and it was mess free.
**I made these from store bought day old bread. We also had some “fake” maple syrup. The cost of “real” maple syrup is extremely high, until I find an alternative, we use the cheap stuff. My children do enjoy our strawberry jam in place of syrup as well.
lunch–we had peanut butter and honey sandwiches that I had packed for the little ones after church. I brought along some veggies to eat in the car for the older ones to satisfy until dinner time.
**I made this from store bought bread and my peanut butter that I still have from last month. Will be making my own when I run out.
dinner–We ate out. We ended up at the parks for the afternoon and evening and decided to “treat” the children to dinner at Burger King. Funny when your children don’t know what a chicken nugget or onion ring is? They gobbled it up, all the more reason, not to have it often.
Monday
breakfast–oatmeal with strawberry jam for sauce with cup of milk
lunch —leftover peanut butter and honey sandwiches, veges, and watermelon
dinner-–spaghetti , greek salad, and zucchini–fried up
**we used white spaghetti pasta–haven’t attempted wheat, still have some
Tuesday
breakfast–oatmeal with strawberry jam for sauce, cup of diluted apple juice
lunch–hard boiled eggs, hummus and veges, watermelon, kids snack mix
dinner–waffles and scrambled eggs–my son Evan, really enjoys making waffles and wanted to make some–so I let him. We enjoyed eating these for dinner with some sliced strawberries and strawberry jam.
Wednesday
breakfast- leftover waffles, strawberries, and milk
lunch–peanut butter and honey, watermelon, carrot and cucumbers
dinner–mexican haystacks
The beginning of this week, we only had the lower half of children, we stuck to making simple, kid-friendly meals. Was an easy time for me. Tonight for dinner, we had picked up the children and added a few more over for a few nights. Mexican haystacks was an easy meal, to prepare beforehand and leave in the oven to stay warm while I was gone.
**we had nacho cheese for the haystacks which we bought a large can of and then froze individually. This next month I am going to be making my homemade “velveeta” cheese, I am hoping that I can use that for nacho cheese too.
Thursday
breakfast- egg mcmuffin sandwiches–no picture!!! Made eggs with bacon bits on top and put on english muffin with slice of cheese.
lunch- chicken sandwich spread, pickles, chips and salsa, hummus and vege/pita
dinner–we ate out
Today we had guests at our home, so when planning my menu this week, I was going for quantity not so much “unprocessed.”
**egg mcmuffin–used store bought muffins. sandwich spread–used store bought miracle whip, chips were store bought tortilla chips
Friday
breakfast–pancake muffins and breakfast burritos
lunch–same lunch as yesterday
dinner-–poor boy subs, chips, watermelon, pop
We had guests again in our home, this was for a social gathering of teenagers. Poor boy subs are a great thing to feed a large crowd.
**same processed as yesterday’s lunch, dinner was all store bought processed foods, except for the veggies on the sub and the watermelon.
Saturday
breakfast–this was my leftover day, we used up leftover waffles, egg mcmuffins, and breakfast burritos.
lunch/dinner–leftovers from the week–sandwich spread, subs, chips and salsa, hummus and veges, radiatore noodle salad, watermelon.
This was a fun week for us, we had guests for half of the week and that added up to fun. Unfortunately for my eliminating processed foods challenge–this week was a fail. But I am good with that, we used up items that we had in our home already, and had to buy minimal groceries plus we had a great time. Amazing how our life can center around food.
Snacks for the week:
When we had guests over we did Smores over the fire, heated up leftover pizza. Munched on chips and had some delicious chocolate zucchini cake. –recipe soon. We also had Popsicle’s. I am still using up my 2nd batch of summer. It seems we ate bigger and my children were more occupied and didn’t whine for snacks as much. They were able to hold off until meals, except for the 2 littlest ones and they were happy with a few apple slices.
I can definitely see the effects of the white flour/sugary/junk food change in my children this week. They were irritable, whiny, and overall more tired. This next week will be more of a DETOX from all of the processed foods this week.
This week’s processed foods are:
- peanut butter
- store bought bread
- spaghetti noodles
- nacho cheese
- miracle whip
- english muffins
- tortilla chips
- chips
- pop
- poor boy subs–sub bread, lunchmeat, cream cheese
- radiatore noodles
- chicken lunchmeat
- pancake syrup
- SMOREs snacks–graham cracker, marshmallow, chocolate bar
- coffee creamer
That is a loooooong list!! Next week will be better. Look for continuation on part 7 and how we eliminated processed foods from our diets.
