Healthy Eating Ideas:

Snacking:

To keep one from eating an entire bag of snacks: bag snacks in individual bags as soon as they are purchased.  Then, cut the top half off of a brown grocery sack to put them in for storage.  This keeps children from consuming an entire back of chips or cookies and limits them to a single serving. Also, when it comes time to pack lunches, the snacks are already packaged and ready to go.  This also saves money by not having to purchase them in individual packages.  This is something that can be done together as the groceries come in so that children are learning responsible eating and consumer habits.

Marketing Your Produce:

Entice you and your family to eat more fruits and vegetables by “marketing” these items in the refrigerator. When you bring your fruits and vegetables home from shopping, immediately place them in attractive bowls, plates or other containers and place at the front of the refrigerator shelving. When you are sitting down in your home, bring out one of these trays of fruits and vegetables. You will be amazing at how quickly they will get eaten. I tried this as an experiment with my children. I nonchalantly started putting out a bowl of fresh fruit while we were working at the kitchen table on homework of playing board games. I noticed right away that the boys started absentmindedly picking up the fruit and eating it. Next, I tried vegetables and dip. The same thing happened. Then I noticed that if I put them at the front of the refrigerator, that whenever they opened the door, they would just grab a handful of carrot sticks or grapes or whatever was there. They weren’t really thinking about it, but they certainly increased their consumption of fruits and vegies. What is really great is that I have witness my son, Aaron using the same strategy with his son.

Decorate your pantry.

Use items that are sitting in cabinets to store food, spices, and cooking items.  For example, I use a beautiful bowl that was given to me as a wedding gift to store my boullion cubes in. They look like little packages all wrapped in foil.  So why not display them?  Also, I hung decorative plates that I don’t use for serving on the wall.  I put mirrors on the bottom of the shelf and then arranged pretty colored bottles for my oils and vinegars.  What a sparkle!  Spices can be kept in a flat basket in decorative bottles. Be sure to use that label maker to label them. Just a note, spices have a shelf life so use them often and spice up your food and your life. Replace when necessary and take a permanent marker and write the date of purchase on the bottom of the bottle.  If you are using decorative bottles, this can be removed with nail polish remover.  If you are using the spices in the bottles from the store, you can recycle these when empty.  Spices usually last a period of six months to a year and plan on using them before the expiration date.

Tea bags can be kept in a beautiful storage box or ceramic bowl.  I like to keep all of the beverage items together on area of the shelf to make it easier to find things.    Also when you have guests, you have all items needed to set out for guest choices.

Use it or Lose It!! Food!!!

One final idea is to use everything in the pantry before you go shopping the next time.  This will save you money are reduce waste.  Use that last can of soup and the pasta (mix them together) and you will see a difference in the total grocery cost.  The last week of the month is reserved for “finishing the food” week.  This week is the week that we eat what is left in the freezer, pantry and fridge before purchasing new food.  Sometimes it ends up being soup night where all the vegetables in the fridge, the pasta in the pantry and an inexpensive cut of meat from the freezer all combine to make a wonderfully hearty soup. This is a good time to use some of those older spices. Bread and desserts are part of this week too.  For not so fresh bread, throw a couple of slices in the blender to make fresh bread crumbs.  Then use these for baking chicken or pork chops or whatever recipe you usually use bread crumbs for.  Mix in some spices for flavor.  Cookies that no one has eaten can be processed in the blender to make a wonderful crust for a pudding pie.  Eggs and milk can be made into a custard and fruit can be made into a pie.  You will feel so much better when all that you are cooking with is fresh. Also, in areas where you lose power, food that is wasted due to power loss is minimal and usually, you can cook everything that you have in matter of hours.

Another benefit to this method is selection. Once you have used everything in your food storage, then you can think clearly when shopping about planning meals and it also encourages you to use more fresh ingredients which is healthier for you.  As you go through this process, you can begin to eliminate some of the processed foods that you are used to using for more fresh and delicious foods. This is healthier for you too.  This process clarifies your cooking and food preparation as it reduces the amount of clutter in your food storage areas and also you are more cognizant of what you have purchased so you are more likely to prepare it.

Take some time to survey your pantry and food storage areas.  What needs to be used?

Coctail sauce?  Put frozen shrimp on your list.  You have mustard that has been in the fridge for a while?  Look up a recipe to use mustard and put the ingredients on your list.  Then make it or have a kid’s cook out with friend to cook hotdogs and hamburgers.  This will use up lots of ingredients that you need to use and will make you the heroine of the neighborhood not to mention your kids.

Peanut butter can be used to make peanut butter cookies or celery with peanut butter as a snack.  Make these and put them in the fridge and they will be gone in a matter of hours.  What a healthy choice for kids.

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