Making Time to Prepare Healthy Foods

Hello,

Anne here again with some thoughts about making healthy eating a priority.

In my previous post, I made a case for healthy food being worth the extra cost. What about the extra time? Do we really have time to prepare meals ourselves? From scratch? What about chopping all those veggies and waiting for the beans to cook?

I would say "Yes, but be smart."

In the last few decades, the rise of convenience foods has been fast and furious. We now have toddler meals sold at the drugstore next to aspirin. Just pop them in the microwave, peel back the plastic, and give your child something "warm" and "filling" in less than two minutes. Or, you could skip the stop at the drug store and simply drive through a fast food restaurant where in two minutes you can have chicken nuggets...

What's in a nugget? Mechanically separated chicken that has been pressed into nugget form and has no less than 37 extra ingredients added to it before it's frozen, trucked across country, fried and packaged with a toy in a paper bag... marketed to guarantee a smile on your child's face. Why do millions of kids eat these? I mean seriously.. there has to be a reason, and health is clearly not it. Read the ingredients and you'll find that chicken nuggets contain at least four "leavening" ingredients: sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and calcium lactate . Yum yum. So why do parents buy them for their kids? (Besides millions of dollars of marketing to coax children into begging for them.)

Convenience.

You hand over cash, grab the bag the drive-through worker hands you, pass it to the back of the car, and zip off to the next thing. It's fast, but at what cost?

Even if you don't go the fast food route, there are plenty of "fast food" meals millions of Americans make at home. Homemade does not equal healthy. It never has. Popping open a can of cream-of-something soup, adding chicken, crackers, and a swath of cheese on top will yield a meal that comes from your own kitchen, but it won't do your family's health any favors.

Yet, nobody has time to cook a healthy dinner every night. Right? We're all busy. Overworked and overtired, we glance at the clock 30 minutes before dinnertime and panic.

Let's stop right there and clear something up: You absolutely CAN make healthy meals for your family. It's doable. I do it. You can do it.

And, I've found it's absolutely worth it.

Two and a half years ago, I had zero kitchen skills and had just started thinking about eating healthier. I've since made it a priority and it's changed a lot of things for our family!

- Everyone in my family enjoys food more when it's made from scratch and made with health in mind. It's flattering to my husband that I care enough about his health and happiness to make nutritious meals, instead of just fast meals.

- My daughter recognizes real food. She loves picking out fruits and veggies at the store, and will grow up helping me make bread, soak beans, freeze peppers, chop onions, and toss salads. She wouldn't know what do to with a fast food nugget if she saw one and that's ok with me. Real food tastes good to her.

Here are 10 things I've learned:

1) You'll get better with practice and you learn shortcuts. You'll get faster at chopping, better at timing meals to be done on time, more efficient in the kitchen and in grocery shopping.

2) Healthy does not have to mean long prep time. In fact, once you kick the salty/sugary/fatty/processed foods to the curb, you appreciate the flavor of simple foods more, so it takes less fuss to make a delicious meal. You'll build an arsenal of healthy recipes that can work in a time crunch and on nights when you have more time to cook, or a few minutes throughout the day to get some prep done, you may enjoy trying more involved recipes.

3) Your pantry will change. You'll start stocking healthy food and weed out the stuff you used to use. You'll have fewer last-minute dashes to the grocery store as you build up a good base of healthy foods. You'll be able to throw together meals in a hurry... from the things in your pantry. Because healthy-on-a-budget means from scratch cooking, you'll find you really get to know foods and how to prepare them. Shop the sales in the produce department and acquaint yourself and your family with new flavors. Find simple ways to prepare vegetables from all seasons.

4) Often healthy eating takes not 1 second longer than poor eating. Grab an apple instead of a granola bar. Pack carrots instead of goldfish crackers. Eat muesli instead of Special K. Drink a glass of water instead of a soda. Throw spinach in your soup or smoothie. Spread hummus on bread instead of butter or jam. Toss raisins in your oatmeal instead of brown sugar. Do black beans from a can instead of ground beef in tacos. Defrost frozen berries for dessert instead of ice cream (ok that one does take longer).

5) You may find you loosen up a bit in terms of mealtimes. Maybe you don't need a side dish at all, and you can just focus on one main dish. Maybe the salad becomes the center of the meal. Maybe you double the recipe and have enough to eat the night after next as well.

6) Many of the tricks of non-healthy eaters can be adapted for you. Use a slow-cooker. Plan a menu. Do prep work the night before. Freeze and reheat meals. Use one component of a meal for future meals (make twice as many beans and use them for something else in a few days).

7) Grocery shopping is so much faster! Hit the produce department and go home. Hehe. So many of my staples are long-term things like split peas, beans, canned tomatoes, frozen veggies, onions, etc. that my shopping trips are typically a breeze. More than half the store is processed foods, so I get to skip on past those aisles.

8) It's satisfying to take time to prepare meals. In many cultures, meal preparation takes hours and up until very recently, in our culture, the kitchen was the center of the home. As I've made time to prepare food from scratch, our kitchen has become a gathering place. My daughter loves to help, my husband invariably ends up chatting me up as I work and often pitches in when he can.

9) Taking time to fuel your body in a healthy way pays off, big-time. Fewer sick days, more energy, longer life... the list is long. Really and truly the difference in lifespan can be decades if you eat in such a way to avoid things like Type II Diabetes and Heart Disease.

10) If it's important to you, you'll find time to do it.

If you know me well, you know I don't do this perfectly at all. I'm still learning how to juggle healthy eating with a busy life. Sometimes my family eats crazy meals because I didn't pull something together in time. Sometimes we eat the same meal THREE days in a row, if I made way too much or have a really busy week. But because we generally only have healthy food on hand, and I have built up a mountain of healthy recipes we love, generally we take the time each day to invest in our health. 30 years from now, I think I'll be glad I made this a priority. I think my body will thank me and my kids and husband will thank me for making the effort... even though it wasn't always the fastest or most convenient option. That's the hope, anyway! :)