We have a limited food budget so it is not possible for us to eat the way I want us to...I am well aware of the healthier alternatives to super processed junk food like newman's chocolate for example, annie's mac n cheese and so forth. When I catch those things on sale or special I stock up. For example, we found snack size bags of craisins (just dried fruit sweetened with sugar) on sale. I bought a bunch of them and dole them occasionally as "dessert" or a special treat for ds. For popsicles, we make our own, or (again, when on sale) I will buy the Edy's whole fruit bars. Ds is limited to three snacks a day (and he can't have three bags of craisins in one day!)
For cookies I usually bake our own and I am going to start making our own crackers as well. Our actual meals are mostly from scratch, but we can't afford to use raw milk, organic local meat/veggies and so forth. Store-bought processed foods that ds eats regularly (as in, once or twice a week)
cheez its or pringles or whatever cracker/chip is on sale
something off the ice cream truck once a week (usually saturday) I think the whole ice cream truck thing has gotten ridiculously expensive and the stuff is garbage, but I let ds buy off it once a week or so with his own money.
hot dogs--we aim for the perfect balance of low price and low preservatives
canned fruit in 100% juice, which I don't really consider a processed food, but not as good as fresh either.
On crazy days with tons of errand running ds is sometimes allowed to get a "7-11 lunch" which consists of half a cup of slurpee (only the white because he can't have the food coloring) and a lunchable. blech. He loves it however, and I save the lunchable containers and reuse them to make him homemade, healthy "lunchables" at home.
For cookies I usually bake our own and I am going to start making our own crackers as well. Our actual meals are mostly from scratch, but we can't afford to use raw milk, organic local meat/veggies and so forth. Store-bought processed foods that ds eats regularly (as in, once or twice a week)
cheez its or pringles or whatever cracker/chip is on sale
something off the ice cream truck once a week (usually saturday) I think the whole ice cream truck thing has gotten ridiculously expensive and the stuff is garbage, but I let ds buy off it once a week or so with his own money.
hot dogs--we aim for the perfect balance of low price and low preservatives
canned fruit in 100% juice, which I don't really consider a processed food, but not as good as fresh either.
On crazy days with tons of errand running ds is sometimes allowed to get a "7-11 lunch" which consists of half a cup of slurpee (only the white because he can't have the food coloring) and a lunchable. blech. He loves it however, and I save the lunchable containers and reuse them to make him homemade, healthy "lunchables" at home.
