Where To Start?

[chely7425]

So, I am in the process of trying to overhaul my family's diet/eating habits but I know I need to do it in baby steps or it just isn't going to work. What would you cut out first? What ingredients would you look to eliminate?

[Arduinna]

Are you drinking Smith Creamery whole milk? I noticed you are in Louisiana too, it's a local dairy and they have non homogenized milk which is healthier. I'd drink raw milk, but don't have any lactating animals and don't have a source for raw milk here.

Other than that, I'd start with buying as much organic food as you can and free range meats and eggs.

[chely7425]

We drink the milk we get from WIC, I would much rather drink local milk but that isn't really an option in our budget right now. There doesn't seem to be a farmers market or anything near us, not that I know how to find one anyway, and the only store we have to shop at is the commissary since the only other thing here is a Walmart. This place sucks... but yeah, what stuff would you focus on trying to buy organic?

[Ruthla]

What is your diet like now? It's hard to know what "baby steps" to recomend if I don't know where you're starting from.

If your family has been using a lot of commerical canned soups and "mixes" (such as flavored rice, cream soups for use as sauces) and drinking sodas, that's the first place to start: learn to make your own cream sauces instead of using canned soups, and learn how to flavor your own rice instead of using MSG-containing flavor mixes. Bake your own cakes instead of using cake mixes containing HFCS and trans fats.

If you're already past that point, then you may want to start increasing fruits and veggies instead.

[chely7425]

We eat a lot of pasta, and grilled meat for DH. Salad, frozen veggies, and rice for dinners. Beans when I can figure out something to do with them. I think I need to work on seasoning my own rice but I don't really know how. We do buy some prepared stuff, what ingredients should I be looking to avoid in the things we do buy?

[Ruthla]

The simplest way to season rice is to use olive oil and salt- mix into the rice before adding the water, then cook. I use about a tablespoon of oil and a teaspoon of salt per cup of raw rice. You can add all kinds of spices when you add the salt- generally about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon each. I never measure the spices, so adjust the seasonings, using more if it tastes too bland. You can taste the water (with the oil, spices, and raw rice mixed in) before cooking, and add more spices if it tastes bland at that point.

Yellow rice is a favorite in my family: turmeric, onion powder, garlic powder, and parsley, in addition to the salt and oil. Or I make an Asian flavored rice, using toasted sesame oil in place of the olive oil and 1 tablespoon soy sauce in place of the salt, plus the spices onion, garlic and ginger. A little tomato sauce or salad dressing is another easy way to flavor rice.

Switching to brown rice is an easy way to make the rice meals more nutritious. I would alternate some white rice meals and some brown rice meals when you're first getting started- white rice cooks up faster and is nice to keep on hand for those "oops, I should have started dinner half an hour ago" nights. Plus your family might need some time to get used to the new flavor and texture.

If you're buying flavored rice mixed or seasoning packets, look to avoid HFCS, MSG, and hydrogenated oils.

[mamadelbosque]

When I started learning to cook, I just thought of stuff I liked to order out and found recipes for it online: chicken parmesan, spaghetti/marinara sauce, lasagna, general tsos' chicken, various stir fry's, etc. Eventually I bought "How to Cook Everything: Vegetarian" and that book taught me *SO* much about cooking!! I later bought the regular How to Cook Everything and those two books were my go-to's for a LONG time - still are really. Though I've recently taken a HUGE liking to Bon Appettit's cookbooks (Bon Appettit and Bon Appetitt: Fast Easy Fresh - both are wonderful, but the second is nice cause' virtually everything can be made in under an hour!!

[chely7425]

Thank you for the tips!! I have heard tons of people mention the "How To Cook EVerything" cookbooks so I might have to get it one of these days

[BetsyS]

I'd just start looking at what you normally eat, then go from there.

One of the things I did last year was wean myself off Coffee-Mate. I loved the stuff (the flavored, refrigerated kind), and I drank it every day. If I hadn't used it every day and/or if I hadn't thought it was really unhealthy, I might not have cared. But, all those chemicals every day? It was too much. So, I slowly converted to half and half and sugar in my coffee. Yes, it tastes different, but it's good, and since it was an everyday thing, it makes a difference.

As my kids got bigger, I realized that we wanted them to develop a taste for water if they were thirsty (something dh and I didn't have). So, I stopped drinking any sort of drinks (cokes, tea, juice, whatever) around them, except for very occasionally. When my coke of the day was limited to naptime, it just got to where I didn't drink them every day, and now I drink a LOT more water than I did.

About 2-3 years ago, we needed to cut our grocery budget a lot, and so I really started looking at how many fruits and vegetables we were getting, determined to make the most of the ones we were getting, while keeping in budget. I started thinking about them differently. About the same time, I started frequenting a farmers' market regularly, my dh started gardening heavily, and so we were eating with the seasons more. Even if you are shopping at Walmart, you can eat more seasonally. Citrus in December and January, corn in July, sorts of things.

My family eats and likes a lot of one pot, soupy, stewy things, especially in winter. During those months, I add a lot of frozen spinach and/or canned tomatoes to foods (they'll go in just about anything). Those are by far the cheapest veggies to me in winter, so it works well for my budget. I make sure that my kids eat fruit and veggies every day, but it's usually in season, cheaper varieties (like right now, it's late June; we eat blueberries and watermelon. We don't eat oranges, you know? Too expensive for not very much food/vitmains).

[Ruthla]

You can take some cookbooks out of the library for ideas, and only spend money on buying cookbooks that you really find useful. You can also look for recipes online.

[Arduinna]

I agree with getting cookbooks at the library before buying.

[chely7425]

I will look at the library here for cookbooks I have never ventured over there... Probably should do that at some point!! I love watermelon, I have no idea where a farmers market might be around here but there is a very yummy watermelon sand in town!