Goals:
Completely eliminate our demon foods: candy for me, pop and chips for hubby. SUCCESS!Cut down or eliminate snacking and desserts (especially the unhealthy ones). SUCCESS! Much less snacking, many fewer desserts, and all of them have been unprocessed: popcorn, homemade crackers, 100% whole wheat cookies.Bake all of our bread products (buns, loaves, crackers, pizza crusts, etc.). Of course! :-)- Switch
back to lean meats; attempt to buy some from the farmer's market.
(Although, I know we'll probably still use mostly grocery store meats,
even with their added ingredients.) --> Sort of. A lot more chicken, no sausage or bacon.
- Focus more on fruits and veggies; more salads. --> Pretty much.
Make all cookies, crackers, etc, from scratch with real ingredients. SUCCESS!Use more whole grains (sub brown rice for white; whole wheat flour for white flour). Super big SUCCESS! Maybe the one I'm most proud of.....Grate cheeses ourselves to avoid stablizers added to shredded cheeses. YES!Cut back on eating out (not that we do that much anyway); be more conscious and careful when we eat out. YES! I think we ate out maybe two or three times. I stuck to salads; hubby cheated a bit. Events at the kids' school were the hardest, where the only options are pizza and (very processed) popcorn.- Cut back on our reliance on meat; one vegetarian dinner per week? --> Sort of. Veggie burritos, cannelloni
- We'd
initially talked about doing only two weeks, but after reflecting, we
realized that it needs to be longer to actually have a chance of
changing our patterns. So we're going to do a month. --> Four weeks, Sunday to Sunday
We
wanted to wait until after the Easter candy was out of the house, and I
know you're not supposed to start changing things on a Monday, so we
agreed to start on April 7. --> Yep!I am willing to cut back, but not totally eliminate sugars. --> Yep!- I
am going to attempt to make all of our sauces: ketchup, mustard, salad
dressings, mayo, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't have
time. If we have to purchase, I will read the labels carefully and
select the most unprocessed I can find. --> Made mayo and dressings; used purchased "simple" ketchup
I will attempt to make all pasta from scratch, but if necessary, will buy the most unprocessed I can. --> BIG SUCCESS! NO store-bought pasta!- I
did not realize the extent of added ingredients to our canned beans and
tomatoes; I will try to start using more dried beans and frozen
veggies. --> Yes, dried beans and frozen veggies; still used canned tomatoes
- I would love to go back to making my own yogurt,
but I'm not sure I'll have the time. If I don't, my usual plain yogurt
already fits the kitchen test. --> Didn't have time; just used plain yogurt
For the most part, our cheeses, butters, milk, cream, peanut butter, maple syrup, and honey already pass the kitchen test. --> Yep, still true- We
will continue to use/cook with vital wheat gluten, wine, table salt,
olive oil, safflower oil, corn starch, and some seasonings (sriacha, soy
sauce, etc.). --> Yep, although we did start choosing our oils more carefully, and I did manage to stay away from corn starch and bottled seasonings; I did use regular chocolate chips in one recipe
