It's been two years since my wife Jessica and I decided to go from eating "healthy" to really eating as clean as possible. We emptied out nearly everything in our cupboard, throwing out or giving away all of our processed foods and basically anything that comes in a package. The first few weeks were tough. Jessica had to learn new recipes that included raw more vegetables and different ways to cook and prepare meat. Thankfully for us, she is an awesome cook and quickly migrated to the new diet.
We've added some things back in over the last two years, like cereal and graham crackers - but not too many things that are what we consider really bad for us to consume. Here's a quick video I shot recently, showing you what we typically have on hand at the house...
So as you can see, most of what we have is raw, whole foods. This is what we eat and what we feed our children. It's amazing what toddlers and young kids will eat when they've never had to option of processed junk food. I hear people complain that their kids will only eat hot dogs or french fries...but even with a couple of picky eaters in our house, we still manage to get them to eat vegetables, fruit and meats every day (some days it takes a little more creativity than others).
Another excuse that I hear is that eating healthy is too expensive. I have two responses to this. First of all, if you just look at price per calorie, this is true. But that makes no sense to me. Of course it is going to be more expensive to eat 600 calories of carrots, broccoli and baked chicken than 600 calories of McDonald's or Hungry Man dinners! But when you compare price per gram (weight) and price per average portion, healthy food wins almost every time. The second response that I have is, what is the cost of NOT eating healthy? Even if it was true that eating a healthy diet was more expensive (which it's not), how much is not eating healthy going to cost you in the long run?
In my line of work, I talk to customers all the time about the difference between initial cost and life-cycle cost of equipment. Maybe you pay more up-front for something, but over its life-span, you will pay much less than you would for the competition due to energy savings and less maintenance/replacement parts. The same is true for your body. If you put good fuel in, you will notice the difference in how you feel and perform. I'm proud to say that we haven't had to take either of our children to the doctor this year for anything other than well check-ups. This is despite the fact that our three-year old is now in Preschool and around sick kids all the time. I haven't been to a doctor in over 8 years and my wife has only been to see an acupuncturist and massage therapist. No one in my house has had a prescription for anything in over two years. It's no accident that we don't get sick...it's a direct result of what we eat on a daily basis.
You can find organic food at lots of stores, but we like to buy local and try to get stuff from farmers markets and through GreenBEAN Delivery as much as possible. I usually only need to go to an actual grocery store once every 10-14 days...and even then, I'm only getting a few things that we can't order from GreenBEAN or find at the farmer's market. We also have to have toilet paper than that kind of stuff (we aren't total hippies yet!).
Feel free to ask me any questions you have about what we eat or how we prepare it...I'm always happy to pass what I've learned on to others!
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