Help me out, PLEASE!

[JamieFay]

Okay ladies, I've been slowly trying to turn our diets as TF as possible. It's difficult for me because my husband was brought up on a very bland, processed diet and is very resistant to change. My children aren't too much of a problem, but what's the point in buying foods that they'll eat for dinner when he won't, kwim? So anyway, that's why I saw slowly. I figure if I introduce new elements of the diet into our meal plan he might not notice the difference, or at least get used to it.
SOOO, when I'm grocery shopping I really try hard to stay away from the processed foods and stick with things that are more in line with TF. I must just be really inexperienced, though, because I get home with stuff that I don't have a lot of use for when it comes to making meals my family will eat. I really want to make this work. We eat mainly beef, chicken at least 2x's a week, and DH will not eat a meal if it does not contain some sort of mean so completely veggie meals are out for dinners (he's at work for breakfast and lunch). I think I just need some more experience.
Do you guys mind sharing your menu plans and/or average grocery lists with me? I'm thinking that if I can see how you all actually plan and shop might help inspire me. TIA

[newcastlemama]

Give me some ideas of what your family likes to eat currently and I will help you TF it

Something almost everyone likes is soaked blender batter waffles/pancakes--

http://www.suegregg.com/recipes/brea...terwaffles.htm

My family likes stews with homemade broth(the stirfry stews in the Nourishing Traditions cookbook are really good and my family like them), crispy nuts, kefir/yogurt (smoothies), saurkraut with cabbage and carrots, the NT broth/rosemary spaghetti with rice noodles, tacos with spouted tortillas, roasted chicken, chicken salad, canned salmon sandwiches on sprouted bread, hamburgers oven roasted vegs and potatoes, soaked oatmeal, eggs, sauasge, ect......

Jen

[newcastlemama]

Also, here is the "How to Start TF" sticky
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=872879

[Magelet]

Our menu plan this week:
thu: Brocolli cream pasta
fri: roast chicken and veggies
sat: dinner at ma's
sun: coconut rice and chicken stir-fry/satay thing
mon: fish and cauliflower
tue:celery root and potato gratin
wed: hummus and fry bread

However, this is the food we like to eat. As a pp said, it would be much easier for you to tell us the type of foods your family likes to eat, and help you make that more TF.

And also, slow is good, very good. I think all of us (or for certain, most) who are still eating TF a significant period after starting, started slowly. We started with using slightly less processed foods. Or adding bone broth. Or substituting butter for margerine. Or making sourkraut. And then, we didn't change anything for a while. And then we used liss processed food. Or we made yogurt. Or we found a source for raw milk we could afford.

If you are buying foods and then not cooking them, then perhaps you should start with picking 7 things to have for dinner that week, (recipes you like) and buy ingrediants for those. If it helps, my shopping list for the past week (with the menu plan above) read like this:

Butter
olive oil
bread flour
dill
lettuce
oranges
pears
onions
garlic
navy beans
lemons
green cabbage
yogurt
cream
a chicken
brocolli
pasta
parm cheese
cauliflower
fish
gruere cheese
red potatoes
kale or chard
bananas
oregano
feta


now, that isn't everything for our meal plan, because we have stuff in the cupboards, such as sardines and anchovies, coconut milk, dried chickpeas, rice, spices, and more.
And not everything on the shopping list is for this particular meal plan. The navy beans for example. Our favorite beans and grains we try to keep dry in the cupboard so since we used them up last week, we needed to get more.
Others are for snack, lunch, or other purposes: kale, bananas, cabbages, other fruit, we will eat these things before they go bad, regardless of whether they are on the meal plan or not, as they are often used for lunches, or spur of the moment dinners. (gee, lets have friends over tonight, okay, we were having gratin? lets add salad and soup to it and the same amount of gratin will feed 4. leftovers and veggies are usually lunch, yogurt, peanut butter and fruit are breakfast with the occasional eggs (in molt season we can't get many pastured eggs).

HTH and isn't overwhelming.

[JamieFay]

Thanks for the info! You guys have already given me a lot to think about that will help me. Meals that my family typically ate (mainly before TF) are:

Spaghetti and meat sauce
tacos with refried beans (my husband's favorite)
Garlic Chicken (I cut up some chicken breast and fry it with butter, olive oil, salt and some chopped up garlic)
Oven roasted whole chickens
Pot Roasts
Beef stew
Chicken and Dumplings
Breaded Pork Chops
Cream of Chicken over rice (I basically make a seasoned white sauce and use it cook a couple of chicken breasts or mix in left over chicken from the whole chicken)
Some sort of ground beef dish, usually mixed with pasta.
asst. of veggies for sides

DH HAS to have a starch, rice or potatos. I've tried time and time again to substitute brown rice for white...children will eat it fine (especially with soy sauce) DH won't touch it ::sigh::
So this is just some of what I normally make...kinda my "go-to" meals. As you can see nothing has cheese in it as DH has a complete aversion to cheese of any kind. I'm allowed to put it in meals where it can be left out of his portion, but usually that leaves the whole meal bland...
DH just received a promotion and will not be working at least 2 days a week at night, so he won't be home for dinner... That means 2 meals can be completely TF and I think the kids won't care at all. Yay! lol!

Breakfast is better for us. My kids love oatmeal and eggs and smoothies so we do a lot of that. Lunch is usually leftovers except my oldest LOVES LOVES LOVES macaroni and cheese. I've gotten him over to the organic boxed stuff but he won't eat homemade and he gets upset if I won't let him have it at least once a week.

First step towards TF I made was throwing out all vegtable oil and margarine. We use butter and olive oil and coconut oil now. We're strictly organic milk, I'm hoping to transition to raw milk sometime in the near future. Next month we get a side of pastured beef and we've signed up for a CSA for veggies and fruits in the summer and fall. I always make broth from our chicken once a week. Hoping to get some bones with our beef for beef broth. Slowly but surely. Thanks again.

[Magelet]

It sounds like you are doing great transitioning to TF, mama. You know, a meat and starch diet in some ways is one of the easiest to transition to TF. And you have some great ideas about how to move forward.

A couple other places you could try moving forward in if you were comfortable with them:
if you don't yet, make your own meat sauce.
if you don't yet, make your own taco seasoning.
if you don't yet, make your own refried beans. (soak beans overnight with a touch of baking soda, put in fresh water in a pot, simmer until soft, (I often simmer with garlic and cumin and kombu (a seaweed), garlic for flavor, cumin because it is a carminative, kombu for added minerals, ideally iodine I think there is some in it). you can serve as is with some fat, or refry, by putting plenty of fat in a pan and heating it, mashing the beans, and stiring them in the hot fat, adding more fat as needed, with some salt.)

With the rice, I would say try a lot of different ways of cooking it for lunch and breakfast, and experiment. I thought for a long time that we would never move to brown, because DP grew up with white rice and asian influenced stir fries and was convinced brown rice wouldn't do. What I love about brown rice though, is it's versitility. You can use one rice, and get something similar to white rice in texture, though less bland, something like barley (all chewy), something like risotto, and all sorts of variances in between. It took me a while to learn to cook it like that. And as DP learned more about how much healthier brown rice is, he became more open to it. Just in the last month, we've started only really eating brown rice. So keep suggusting it, but give it time.

For other startches, will he accept sweet potatoes? other whole grains like barley or quinoa?I'm thinking meat sauce on barley might be really tasty. I personally don't think pasta is very healthy, however I grew up eating it so i admit we have it almost once a week. What I discovered is that some (not all) of my favorite pasta dishes can be converted to sides (We have this yummy cauliflower pasta dish thats scrumptious, but it works just as well without the cauliflower.

Can you get sprouted whole wheat flour for dumpings? sourdough whole wheat bread crumbs? arrowroot works great instead of flour for whitesauces, once you learn how to use it (disolve it cold, and know that as you cook it, it thickens slowly, rather than sort of all at once like flour.)

maybe give some organ meats a try, either as something like fryed chicken or duck livers (I like duck better than chicken), or as a spoonfull pureed and stuck in anything you cook ground meat ( hamburgers, meat sauce,), you can't taste it, but adds nutrition.

You could try using more stock, in more places (I don't know about you, but I usually cooked it but didn't eat it, just let it sit in the freezer. oops. I'm learning to use it now.) in your pot roast and beef stew (you can use chicken stock in beef stew. maybe not ideal but I've done it just fine), in gravy for the roast chicken, even to cook pasta or beans or veggies in.

overall though jamie, it looks like you are making great changes to getting your family eating healthy. Your food likes like it is pretty whole foods, and you've gotten yourself to healthy fats, which is huge! congrats jamie.

[JamieFay]

Thanks for all your help Caroline After I posted I realized how easy it would be to refine what we already eat. I guess I made the mistake of assuming we'd have to eat completely differently! I think the whole starch thing will be a issue for DH but he'll live, haha! Thanks again, you gave me a lot of confidence!

[Magelet]

Your welcome. I'm glad to help. I got some much help from ladies here when I first started, and am always thrilled to pass it on to others.

(btw, I meant without the pasta, not without the cauliflower on the cauliflower pasta!! lol)

[mbravebird]

Originally Posted by JamieFay

Thanks for the info! You guys have already given me a lot to think about that will help me. Meals that my family typically ate (mainly before TF) are:

Spaghetti and meat sauce
tacos with refried beans (my husband's favorite)
Garlic Chicken (I cut up some chicken breast and fry it with butter, olive oil, salt and some chopped up garlic)
Oven roasted whole chickens
Pot Roasts
Beef stew
Chicken and Dumplings
Breaded Pork Chops
Cream of Chicken over rice (I basically make a seasoned white sauce and use it cook a couple of chicken breasts or mix in left over chicken from the whole chicken)
Some sort of ground beef dish, usually mixed with pasta.
asst. of veggies for sides

Hey, this sounds GREAT! As long as you're using good fats to saute and fry in, you're good to go with most of these meals. Just work on slowly converting them to pastured meats instead of conventional meats, and then you'll get more health benefits. You can replace the white-flour pasta with whole-grain rice pasta (Tinkyada is the only brand that tastes similar -- and it does taste VERY similar), and that will be a good shift. Convert the dumplings to whole-grain. Make your own chicken broth for the beef stew and the cream of chicken sauce, and that would be wonderful for your health.

Here's my taco-seasoning mix:
Beef Filling:
Sauteed onions and garlic with
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt
Then add the beef until browned, then add:

1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon honey or sucanat or maple syrup
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
Ground black pepper
Cook it down a bit, about ten minutes, and you're good to go!

When you're converting things to whole grain, like the dumplings, use the "white whole wheat" flour -- it's whole grain, but from a lighter wheat, and your husband might not notice it as much -- it tastes and feels lighter.

Have fun!!

[Grace and Granola]

It sounds like you are off to a terrific start! I am new to this too, but the one thing that stuck out to me was what you said about getting home from the grocery store and having nothing to put together for your meals. I have found it essential to plan out the meals before heading to the store. This will also save you a ton of money. Find 5-7 meals that you want to try and write out your grocery list. Then add as much extra fruits and veggies you want to have for breakfast and snacks. For my meal planning, I am having a ton of fun visiting people's blogs. These people know what they're doing and you can pick and choose which recipes you want to try. If you like a recipe (or if your husband does), save it to your favorites so you can use it again. I would see if you could get your husband to agree to trying one "different" recipe each week. Something not too far out of his comfort zone but that would stretch him a bit.

As far as your ds's mac and cheese. I would not sweat one box per week. After you get some new recipes into your home, he might get a new favorite meal that will replace it!

[rhiandmoi]

Just a word of warning, I sprang grass fed steak on my DH without any announcement and he did not like it at all. He does not like the flavor of grass fed whole cuts, and needs them to be pretty seasoned to eat. He is totally fine with it it as ground beef in meat balls, meat loaf, spaghetti, etc or cubed up in a stew or chili, but he does not like the steaks. I would definitely start with the ground beef or cubed packets of your meat share first. And get a meat grinder if you don't have one. Last year I purchased a mixed order of grass fed beef and after the steak incident I have just been turning everything into cubes or ground beef myself. This year I'm only going to order ground beef.

I actually should have known this about my DH, since he hates the taste of wild game because of the flavor of the fat.

[PreggieUBA2C]

Originally Posted by JamieFay

Thanks for all your help Caroline After I posted I realized how easy it would be to refine what we already eat. I guess I made the mistake of assuming we'd have to eat completely differently! I think the whole starch thing will be a issue for DH but he'll live, haha! Thanks again, you gave me a lot of confidence!

Jamie, your meals are easily TF with whole ingredients; I think you can transition without much hassle at all, whatever is left that is. You've already made so many changes!!!

About the starch, I'm not sure why you want to get rid of it. We eat a lot of whole, skin-on, organic potatoes. They weren't available for a few months last year and it was terrible! I have endocrine issues and potatoes prepared TF (so lots of fat and whole) and found my health was badly affected by not having those potatoes. They are not just starch!!! They are loaded with vitamins and minerals- especially from where we live where the soil is so mineral-rich that it needs lots of help to make it fertile (clay and sands of many varieties here). That, and they are not refined starches, but whole, like the differenc between whole grains and refined, raw honey and white sugar, etc....

Fwiw, my ancestry is very rice-poor overall, and I have little tolerance for it at all. The only sort that I have enjoyed is basmati, but even then, in very small quantities and we haven't had rice in years. We also don't eat legumes in general, except for occasional sprouted green lentils and garbanzoes, and occasionally cooked dark red kidney beans. All others cause a lot of distress for most of us, no matter how long soaked and cooked. Nobody in my extended family can tolerate the others either and don't even eat the ones we eat sprouted because they cannot eat them at all (they don't sprout though).

I'm just sharing because there are people such as my family, that thrive health-wise with potatoes and suffer with rice and legumes. I guess we just have very inadequate parotid glands for rice and legume digestion. Potatoes are fine though.

Oh, and regarding gamey tasting beef, do you have access to bison? The bison here and even the moose, actually, have no gamey taste. Very unusual for moose especially, but I have found bison from other areas (only in Canada, though) comparable in flavour- little to no gaminess.