all in good health

straight from the earth. spring 2011

health·y [hel-thee] 

adjective

1. possessing or enjoying good health or a sound and vigorous mentality: a healthy body; a healthy mind.

2. pertaining to or characteristic of good health, or a sound and vigorous mind: a healthy appearance; healthy attitudes.

3. conducive to good health; healthful: healthy recreations.

[source]

Last week I asked a question:

what do you want me to talk about? 

You answered. 

I loved it. 

Before I get started on some of those posts, 

I thought of something I should have done, oh, forever ago......

.....define what healthy means to me. 
(today we're just talking about healthy eating.....of course this goes hand in hand 
with a physically active lifestyle)

This may be completely different than your definition, but this is my 

"healthy", and what all the food posts on The Blog will center around. 

It's an always changing, always learning, always growing-process. 

It's not perfect every day, but it's what we aim for. 

The most important rule for me, and the one rule I try to focus on is:

Everything in Moderation. 

for example: 

a cupcake is good. seven cupcakes is not. 

we eat meat in our house. we don't eat it every day. 

Also, we really do try to eat a little bit of everything. 

Varieties of grains, beans, colorful fruits and vegetables--not just the same thing all of the time.

How many different foods can we try? It's fun.

Grains. 

We eat them. We love them. We eat as many whole grain (not refined) products as we can. 

Whole wheat bread. 

Whole wheat pasta. 

Brown Rice. 

We eat barley, bulgur, quinoa, oats. 

And you know what, sometimes with soup, sourdough bread tastes AWESOME, so we eat it. 

And we don't sweat it because we eat all those other whole grains every day,

 so we have some wiggle room.

Proteins. 

We eat meat. but we eat it sparingly. 

A few times a week. (I posted a bit about that here)

various beans and legumes. 

eggs. 

Cheese.

I really like cheese, therefore it gets it's own category.

Cheese gets a bad rap in "health" magazines or blogs because of it's fat content. 

So just don't eat so much. And eat real cheese. 

"cheese" spreads are not cheese.

Produce. 

My favorite. 

We eat any variety we can get our hands on. 

We like to buy local when we can (for Utah that is mostly in the summer), and we grow what we can. 

We like to try to eat what is in season--

it's fresh

it tastes 1000x better

it has more nutrients when you eat it pulled straight from the dirt, 

and it doesn't have to travel in a truck across the country.

Cake. 

and other sweets. 

We eat them. 

Again, referring to that very first rule--we only eat them every so often.

Last week there was a birthday in our house. 

Cupcakes were made (post coming!) and enjoyed. 

sugar, flour, no "healthy substitutions". 

I want my cake to be cake, and my cookies to be cookies. 

Fats.

We like GOOD fats. 

nuts. seeds. salmon. avocado. olive oil. 

These are another food group that have a bad reputation, but our bodies and brains need these good types of fats to thrive. 

And they taste good! How could we stay away?

Snacks.

There are always fruits and veggies in our house to be snacked on.

"but my kids don't like them" you say. 

You have to keep at it. Start NOW. Keep offering. (a post about this here)

Handful of nuts. 

smoothies.

I try to by as few pre-packaged snacks as possible, and when I do, I look for snacks that are REAL food with REAL ingredients that I can read (and pronounce!) on the label. 

(more snacks here.)

Organic.ish.

I do not get hung up on the word "organic". 

I like my produce free of pesticides and my meat free of growth hormones and antibiotics. 

I like to read labels, and if everything in my crackers/cereal/tortillas is an actual ingredient that I recognize as food, I will buy it--regardless if it's labeled "organic" or not.

(an organic post here. ha! same photo!)

Fake Food.

we eat real butter. real cheese. real beef without fillers. food that was grown in the ground and not produced in a science lab. High-fructose corn syrup won't be found in our house.

That is a very basic overview-kind of a guideline that I like to go by. 

What it all comes down to for me, is If It's Real, Eat It. 

If it's Not Real Don't.

Next week I'll post about eating healthy on a budget.--I'd love to hear any questions you might have. 

How do YOU define healthy eating?