[lil_miss_understood]

Okay, so I have come to realize that our diet has become really narrow since we started dealing with food allergies/intolerances. Perhaps it always has been but it's really become <span style="text-decoration:underline;">noticeable</span> since dealing with our food issues. Although, we really have lost quite a few foods when I think about it (dairy, gluten, nuts/coconut/peanuts, berries, bananas, with limitation of all goitrogens... I'm missing things but I can't think of what atm, although goitrogens are a big group).<br>
There are some foods I would like to start adding into our diet but, having not really used them much, it seems a little overwhelming. My plan is to try to add one food at a time in order to "acclimate" ourselves to it before adding another one. My plan right now is to get us eating them once a month.<br>
I'd like to know. Would you consider it "cheating" to start off with "easy" versions (ie canned beets rather than fresh) while we're in this stage? I mean, we LOVE beets, but we never eat them so I'd like to start getting them canned just for ease of adding them in. (They're not the food I'm concentrating on adding in right now but...) Or, for example, I have a difficult time keeping up with broth/stock, would it be "cheating" to buy broth to keep on hand for making quinoa?<br>
I know those probably sound like silly questions but... <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/redface.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="Embarrassment"> I have this weird sense of it being "wrong" somehow. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/lol.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="lol">

 

[tanyalynn]

I'm pretty big on making things easy. If you like the taste of canned beets, go for it. Sometimes I just struggle getting enough food cooked for all our meals, and we're only 2 adults, a 6yo and a 4yo. So I'm willing to take shortcuts or compromises.<br><br>
For stock--we skip it, if I don't have any, I use water, plus salt and extra herbs or whatever flavorings I've got. The storebought stuff has flavor, and occasionally I want that, but most of what I want from stock is gelatin and the minerals and I don't know a storebought kind that can do that.<br><br>
I am willing to compromise to keep myself sane and fairly happy. So I bought some rice pasta online when I was buying other stuff, it's cheaper than local, and then, on those nights when things just aren't happening in the right order, I can saute an onion in ground beef, throw in a jar of pasta sauce, and make pasta. I try not to plan for those nights, but I accept that they will happen and that's a decent fall-back.<br><br>
For me, one of the biggest things that's been helpful is to make a mental template of what I could throw together relatively quickly (or easily, since a chunk of beef in the crockpot isn't fast, but it's easy to do before we run out the door at 10am). I don't know if that's part of what you're looking for now, but it's bailed us out a couple times this week. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/img/vbsmilies/smilies/bag.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="Bag">

 

[kjbrown92]

Why don't you just put things on your grocery list every couple weeks. You're more likely to use beets, for instance, if you see them in your vegetable drawer every time you open it, then if it's just one of many cans sitting on the shelf. Know what I mean? Like I've been trying to add in kale, so I buy it, then when I go to make a salad, I say, "there's the kale, I better use it before it goes bad."<br><br>
For broth, for us, the whole point of it is healing, so I don't bother with the store bought.<br><br>
But I do buy some things in cans, for ease, like pineapple rings, because it's a quick and easy snack for DD2. Or chickpeas, because DS likes to fry them up for breakfast with a little curry powder. And I buy frozen peas and lima beans.<br><br>
What kinds of things do you want to add in? Maybe we can help with ideas on how to include them in things...