One of my personal goals is to provide healthy, economic and enjoyable meals for my family. This sounds like a straightforward goal, but I
admittedly manage to complicate it at times.
The fact that I have a “sensory
kid” has not helped over the past six years either. We’ve been though periods where he
self-limited his diet to under ten “accepted” foods, as well as stretches of
trying out different feeding and eating strategies. Now, though, I think we have hit a workable
groove.
Healthy?
 |
| PYO strawberries fit the "healthy" bill! |
I am forever on a quest to define what “healthy” means in
terms of actual foods to be consumed as well as how to combine those
foods.
Thus, through the years,
I have read numerous books and find
myself still synthesizing all the ideas—trying to discover what the ideal “healthy”
diet for me, personally, is, as well as what eating approach is best for each
individual member of my family.
At its most basic, I have determined that healthy food means “as close as possible to
how God created it”. However, I also
recognize that every person has a different chemistry and may need a different
combination of these foods. So, my
research, experimentation and reflection continues.
Basically, in our
home, we aim to consume greater proportions of:
·
whole, unprocessed (or only lightly processed)
foods
·
organic fruits and vegetables
·
grass-fed/pastured meat and eggs (increasingly
used as a condiment instead of a mainstay of meals)
·
good fats (coconut oil, olive oil, nuts, seeds,
fish)
We also
aim to
reduce refined sugar consumption and to avoid artificial colors, artificial
flavors, preservatives, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup and, due to
individual needs, gluten and casein, all together.
Economic
 |
| Can't get much more economical than free clams... Now, if getting the kids to eat them was just as easy! |
Economic equals inexpensive, right?
It used to for me.
Just 2 ½ years ago I had our family eating
mostly organic foods for a mere $75 or so a week. However, between rising prices and all of the
dietary guideline we have layered into our family’s diet, we have added another $10,
$20— okay maybe even $200 at times— to our weekly grocery bill. Eating additive-, preservative-, artificial dye-,
artificial flavor-, white sugar-, gluten- and casein-free in today’s economy is
not cheap when you have picky eaters at home who do not like the less expensive
whole foods (oh, for potato lovers) and when you also have no green thumbs in
the family.
Indeed, many of my children’s favored whole foods are pricier
ones. The more processed foods that they
like, which I will concede to buying, are not inexpensive either. And growing our own food? Well, that is more a dream than a reality for
us, albeit a dream I am working on realizing. (We managed a few pepper plants
this year.)
So,
“economic” has
had to take on a new meaning for me. The
definition is no longer as black-and-white as a simple figure at the bottom of
a register receipt. Rather it means aligning
the realities of what it
actual costs to account for my little’s finicky palettes with an ideal dollar amount figured from thrifty meal plan
costs (which I use to gauge our food expenditures) all while abiding by a vision
for our family food culture:
We are a family of healthy eaters who
understand how our food choices affect ourselves
and our world. We do not worry about
food, but we do pay attention to choosing
nutritionally dense foods that will help us maintain both vitality and happiness.
Hopefully, this modified sense of economy will help me
minimize stress from trying to maintain unreasonable low weekly food bills
while maximizing our chances at not
having to pay significant future medical and dental expenditures.
Enjoyable
 |
| Eating on the go can still be relatively healthy (when I think ahead). |
While there are definite recipes, picnics and meal times
that our family enjoys, there are also days that I cannot even begin to define
what “enjoyable” means for my family as far as food goes lately.
Sadly, our meal times are too often utilitarian events,
where we try to ensure our children get adequate nutrition despite my two older
children’s picky protests to what is placed in front of them –even when they
have helped make the meal! Equally as
often as autumn unfolds, too many meals are rushed, or eaten in the car. (Who knew scheduling work and activities could
interfere with eating so much?)
When this happens it sucks the simple joy I used to
experience relative to cooking, baking and entertaining right out of me, making
meal preparation and sharing more of a chore than a pleasure.
Thus, “enjoyable”
eats come and go here and are something I aim to experience more often than we
are now doing.
To that end, a few months ago, I gave myself a pass on any
low dollar figure for “economic” eating and created
a
month-long meal plan and shopping list, which I shared as a printable.
It highlighted the “healthy” aspect of our
family food goal and aimed to make meal preparation a bit more enjoyable for
me, while moving us beyond the boring repertoire of menu items we had fallen
into eating over the prior six months.
The month-long plan helped a little, but life and discipline
worked against it. So, I went back to
trying weekly meal planning. Again, with
limited success. Then, ad hoc,
day-by-day, meal-by-meal planning, which allows spontaneity, but results in more
stress than I like. So, I am back to loose weekly meal planning and
trying to add at least one new recipe or meal a week, while also trying to find
many more ideas to add to my repertoire
of quick, pre-prepared, on-the-run or
crock pot meals that my kiddoes will enjoy.
Ideas are most welcome.
Good for SPD
 |
| A hard won battle: broccoli! |
I know there is no Sensory Processing Disorder diet. (Well, at least not a food diet. Of course, there is the ever important sensory diet.) However, since in our family's case SPD co-exists with ADHD and, we were thinking, Aspbergers, I have spent a good deal of time over the past several years researching diet and its possible effects on children who are nuerologically atypical.
I became convinced that dietary changes could mean big changes in symptoms and behavior, and, so, after some convincing of my husband, began implementing such changes in our home. The specifics of how I did so could be a post (or series) in itself. However, the result is that our entire family currently eats additive-, preservative-, artificial dye-,
artificial flavor-, white sugar-, gluten- and casein-free at home and, the kids, for the most part, eat the same way when we are not.
While, as I already mentioned, eating this way has been a detriment to our budget, it has been a boon to our sensory kid. In conjunction with other choices, therapies and strategies, the diet we currently maintain seems to have lengthened our eldest's list of accepted foods. It has also decreased challenging symptoms and behaviors. In fact, grandparents, local librarians, friends and others have noticed a huge difference in our son — as have we — and have asked what we have done. Truly, the biggest thing we have done to affect such change has been changing his diet. (I know doing the same might not work for everyone, but it truly works for us thus far. We have even been formal therapy-free with our son since the beginning of summer and still do not feel the need to return to a rigorous schedule of OT, feeding therapy, behavior modification, etc.)
So, all in all, I feel I am well on our way of meeting my goal of providing healthy, economic, enjoyable and good for SPD eats for our family. Now, if I could just get is to the vision of "not worrying about
food" Admittedly, I still do far too often..
What are your family food
goals? What steps have you taken to
reaching them lately? Do you have a
vision for the food culture you’d like to create in your family?
