Healthy eating doesn't have to be difficult. It can be doing something as simple as adding vegetables or fruits to an existing recipe. For example, my husband and I like to make our own lasagna. Almost all the lasagna recipes we saw had meat in them. When we stated thinking about eating healthier and eating lower on the food chain, we took a lasagna recipe we liked and experimented with replacing the meat with different vegetables.
Spinach, minced carrots, zucchini were some of the vegetables we tried. We decided we liked them all and we didn't miss the meat. Now vegetables are standard ingredients in our lasagna recipe and our family loves it.
Want ideas on eating more healthy? Here are some things we do in our home.
Super Foods Include Fruit Preserves
One book that inspired me to start thinking about eating more healthy was Steven Pratt's SuperFoods. In the book, the author outlines 14 super foods and their "sidekicks." One thing I found particularly helpful was that he gave suggestions on ways to work these healthy additions into your diet.
In our family, we've incorporated fruit preserves into our Sunday pancake ritual. Now we use fruit preserves on pancakes instead of syrup.
Oddly, I had always considered jams and preserves to be unhealthy because of their high sugar content. But after reading the book and hearing how the author worked a fruit serving into his breakfast by having preserves on toast, I started looking for ways to expand the use of preserves – something everyone in the house loves.
The picture isn't great – my daughter was halfway through her meal when I thought to take the picture, but you get the idea. Some times I heat up a small bowl of the preserves and we use them as a compote topping.
I'm especially fond of wild blueberry preserves, but almost any fruit preserve is good. If you can find organic and low sugar variations of the food those are preferred. I have to hunt for organic jams and preserves in my local grocery store, but you can also find them online. I especially love blueberries and blackberries, so I was thrilled recently to discover I could buy organic spreads online if I couldn't find them locally. Now I can have healthy eating and convenience. Yummmmm!
