What should we eat? How do we plan our meals? How do we prepare a nourishing meal? You might think that figuring out what to eat is a no-brainer, but you would be amazed how often I am asked these very questions.
It seems that a whole generation of people have grown up without someone cooking in the kitchen. They have been completely removed from the process of meal planning and meal preparation. Their idea of a wholesome meal while growing up involved opening a package of processed food and dumping in on a plate. Or grabbing some drive-thru. Often there was little thought about what foods should be put together to make a wholesome meal or how to make them. I mean, a Big Mac, Fries and Coke go together just fine, right?
But then these people grew up. For various reasons, they began to re-think the way they were taught to eat. Sometimes it's because the food they learned to eat has actually depleted their health. Sometimes they start re-thinking their food choices because they have a friend who is making changes. Regardless of why they begin thinking about their food, when they start asking questions they are bombarded with mixed messages about what they should be eating. It seems everyone has a strong opinion about it. Whatever you are doing, there is sure to be someone around to tell you that it's the worst thing you could be doing. Sigh... Eating shouldn't be this hard.
My heart goes out to these people. Making lifestyle changes is hard enough without all the mixed messages and diet-guru-bickering. So lets just keep things simple. Super-simple.
This series will take you through some very basic posts covering each of the four major times we eat:
Breakfast Lunch Dinner Snacks & Desserts
I will cover how to choose what is healthy for your body, how to plan, where to find good recipes, how to evaluate a recipe for real nutrition, how to shop for real food and how to substitute better ingredients for the not-so-good things Americans tend to eat. I will also show you how I manage to meet the nutrient-dense, high-calorie needs of my energetic, growing kids and still meet my own nutritional needs (so that I don't "grow," too.)
This isn't going to be a "I-know-everything-so-do-it-my-way" series, nor is it an all-inclusive look at everything there is to know about what we eat. Rather, this is a beginners guide. It is a starting point to making healthier choices that will improve your life. And it's simple. We're going to make this easy.
I hope you'll join me for What to Eat -- A Beginner's Guide to Real Food.
