Questions on whole food diets

Although we are gluten free now I used to make bread quite frequently. I always made it the old fashioned way – kneading it myself. It is really easy if you are willing to try it. You can grind wheat berries in your vitamix btw.

For snacks we eat fruit, raw veggies, nuts, cheese, yogurt, kefir smoothies, and the occasional treat like cookies or brownies made with alternative flours and honey.

I also make large batches of granola for breakfast or snacking.

The key for me with whole foods is not to be fancy. I don’t use recipes in general because we eat simply. I bake fish by drizzling it with olive oil and choosing a seasoning to sprinkle over it. I don’t make fancy sauces or elaborate side dishes. I usually put some rice in the rice cooker and choose a vegetable to steam. With chicken I often toss it all in a pan with a little water and lemon pepper, make some coconut flour biscuits, and roast some veggies like Brussels or cauliflower.

Learning a few methods rather than recipes is helpful. Once you know how to roast vegetables it is mostly the same for any – drizzle with oil, salt and pepper, bake at 400 until fork tender, stirring here and there. Usually takes 20 minutes.

My other recommendation is that when you are cooking, cook a lot. 🙂 leftovers are such a lifesaver from hours in the kitchen everyday.

Also, consider using a crockpot for tougher cuts like roast or round steak. Toss in, season, let cook all day. Easy. At dinner time add a veggie or two, and maybe some quinoa. You can roast a whole chicken in the crockpot too. I rub the skin with butter, season, cook all day. After we eat and I pick all the meat out I fill the crockpot with water and leave it on low all night and the next day and voila – chicken stock 🙂 I use some for soup and freeze the rest.

I like wellnessmama.com and second the nourishing home.

Tara

So awesome that your hubby is the one initiating this!! It took a few years of dragging my hubby along behind me in our food journey before he finally decided to jump on board willingly! Here are my answers to your questions in order:

1. I have an entire Pinterest board devoted to whole food snack ideas. I hope you find it helpful! Also, here is a recipe for homemade Larabars. 
2. Favorite recipes: lasagna, crab cakes, chicken tortilla soup, eggplant parmesan, tomato basil soup, roasted chicken, Zuppa Toscana
3. Grain-free lunch ideas include soup (homemade bone broth is a must if you can make it using this perpetual stock method), leftover meat and veggies from dinner the night before, quiche, boiled or friend eggs, kale chips, raw fruits and veggies, and smoothies. Also, I have a grain-free/sugar-free Pinterest board that has many lunch, dinner, dessert, and snack ideas as well.
4. I whole-heartedly endorse GNOWFGLINS, The Healthy Home Economist, Mommypotamus, and The Nourishing Home for recipe ideas. GNOWFGLINS has a HUGE recipe database that you can search through and use specifics (ie. gluten-free, breakfast, sides) to find exactly what you’re looking for.
5. I am not a successful bread maker, but if you can make a sourdough starter and grind your own grains, that would be where I would start. Supposedly, sourdough is the easiest bread to make, as long as you watch it and feed your starter when it’s ready. I tried for several weeks to make sourdough, and I was only successful once. Hopefully, you can try it with greater success!

If I could humbly offer a bit more advice (speaking from experience here):

The most important thing you can change in your diet, in my opinion, are your fats. The healthiest fats you can consume are real butter, coconut oil, tallow from grass-fed cows, ghee, lard from pastured pigs, and extra virgin olive oil.

The second most important thing would be to change the types of meats you buy. If you currently buy plain grocery store ground beef, look for a local farmer who sells pastured beef. The nutrient profiles of the two are completely different, and you’re going to get more nutrition for your money with the pastured beef.

Pastured eggs are a cheap protein source whenever you get tired of spending so much money on grass-fed beef, bison, or pastured chickens.

If you don’t currently soak or sprout beans, rice, grains, nuts, and seeds before eating, try adding that extra step and see how much more digestible and accessible the nutrients from these foods are. If baking your own bread becomes overwhelming, we really love Ezekiel bread with the red label (because it’s soy-free).

I wish you all the best in your journey! It’s easy to become overwhelmed, but if you’ll persevere, you’ll find out this is one of the best things you can do for your family!

Blessings,

Lindsey

Bookworm, I am not the OP, but I would love it if you would share your favorite plant-based resources!  I am gluten free and moving towards a vegan diet for health reasons.

Hi pinkchopsticks!  Love, love, love http://www.happyherbivore.com   Just got one of her books yesterday and it’s FANTASTIC!  I have Everyday Happy Herbivore.  I have the China Study Diet Cookbook on the way.  I love the blog Carrie On Vegan, Plant Powered Kitchen, Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, Chocolate Covered Katie (for the occasional treat!) Oh She Glows, chefchloe.com, Vegan Lunchbox–there are so many!  Carrie On Vegan does a weekly roundup of recipes, too, so if you sign up there you get recipes from all over and can discover new sites.  Hope some of these help!  SOME vegan sites use too much sugar for me–but I usually just drop sugar and add another mashed banana instead.  And some are not low-fat—which is a major criterion here.  You just have to watch.  The yoga journal, Elephant Journal, is doing a series today on veganism, too.  (This site has some dating/romance articles on it, not really a site to let kids on for sure.)  

1.  We try to stick with fruits & veggies for snacks.  Raw, fresh fruits & veggies.  Occassionally I’ll do homemade Larabars or other such fruit/nut treats.  And popcorn (organic so it doesn’t contain GMOs).

2.  I keep my recipes on my Pinterest boards and that’s where I find most of mine.  That and internet searching.  This is me: http://pinterest.com/4mycrazyboys/boards/

3.  Smoothies, eggs in all the ways to make them, more fruits & veggies, bean burritos, leftovers, soup, hummus veggie wraps.

4.  I use many of the sites listed above.  I don’t think there are any not listed…and a few new ones to try.  We’re a whole foods (mostly) low-meat & low-dairy family, trying to only have meat 3 times a week or less.  And limited sugar.  

5.  I made bread for years by hand before I bought my Bosch.  I would try to make 2 or 3 loaves at a time (more than that and it got impossible to stir).  Mostly you just have to plan ahead.  I made it a lot in the evenings when dh was around to wrangle kids or they’d gone to bed.  I use this recipe most of the time.  I don’t use the dough enhancer or vital wheat gluten though.

Have fun…and don’t beat yourself up if you have some fails, if you end up buying something from a box, or things don’t flow as smoothly as you’d like.  It’s a journey.

Great info ladies!  Bookworm…thanks for taking the time to share all that!  I am going to check it out now. 🙂