2 posts tagged “vegetables”

I love walking through a farmer's market, fresh produce looks far more appealing than the pre-packaged fare.  If you are feeling inspired to eat something healthy, check out this article from Planet Green..

Save Money, Lose Weight, and Eat Green for a Week with this 3-Step Sunday Set-Up

by Laurel House, planetgreen.discovery.com

While it's great in theory, preparing healthy, whole, organic meals every night of the week can be quite the feat. If you're a mom and you're also responsible for feeding an entire family, the task can be even more time consuming. Instead of stressing about how you are going to pull it together night after night, Sunday Set-Up is your plan-ahead solution.

Kathy Kaehler, a working mom, celebrity personal trainer, and healthy living television spokesperson, created Kathy Kaehler's Sunday Set-Up to help make daily meal prep more practical. The idea is that every Sunday you "set-up" your meals for the week by shopping at your local farmers' market (or natural food market) and selecting, then prepping foods that can be made into a week's worth of recipes.

Eat Healthier Whole Meals by Planning Ahead

More than streamlining the nightly evening ritual, Kathy created this set-up to help moms incorporate more healthy, organic, home-cooked meals into their children's lives. "Families today rely too much on take-out and ordering-in. Our children are not learning how to prepare healthy meals. By implementing Sunday Set-up into your routine, you will save money, eat better, eat healthier, feel more energized, gather as a family more often, and you may even lose some weight."

Sunday Set-Up is as easy as 1-2-3:

   1. On Saturday or Sunday afternoon, take your kids and go shopping at your local farmers market or grocery store, picking up the freshest ingredients possible. Bringing the kids is key, as it gets them excited about the healthy ingredients, and includes them in the meal selection (making it more likely that they will actually eat it).

   2. On Sunday afternoon or evening, chop, par boil, and grill the ingredients necessary for a week’s worth of meals and snacks. This includes vegetables, rice, pasta, and chicken.

   3. After the chopping and preparing, store the fixings in clear glass containers and place them at the front of your refrigerator. That way, you will be excited about all of the mix and match possibilities for meals and last-minute healthy snacks for the week and your kids can easily help themselves to more wholesome options.

Kathy Kaehler's Sunday Set-Up Shopping List

   1. Brown rice (organic)
   2. Whole wheat pasta (organic)
   3. Kidney Beans (organic)
   4. Kathy's Kale
   5. Chopped Onions (organic)
   6. Boiled Eggs (organic)
   7. Chopped Peppers Orange, Red and Yellow (organic)
   8. Boiled Chicken Breast (organic)
   9. Small grape tomatoes (organic)
  10. Broccoli (organic)
  11. Cauliflower (organic)

Of course, shopping seasonally, locally, and organically is always the greenest way to go. Use the above list as a base, then make changes according to availability.

I think I am finally feeling better today..I'm a bit nervous to say anything in case I jinx it...
Feeling inspired, I found this Daily OM article on growing your own food.  What a beautiful way of connecting to nature and eating healthy. Please enjoy & I hope you plant something soon ;o)

Flavors of Life
Growing Your Own Food
from DailyOM

Growing a garden of food at home is an experience anyone can enjoy. Even a hanging basket of rosemary or a cherry tomato plant in a pot on the windowsill can enhance your connection with the cycle of life. If you have space outdoors, the green and blooming colors of the edible delights you are growing will decorate any view while tempting you to enjoy the outdoors. The edible plants we nurture allow us to literally taste the fruits (or vegetables or herbs) of our labor while helping us more consciously participate in the circulating energy of nature.

Allow yourself to begin slowly and simply, so that you can learn to dance with nature’s intricate orchestrations. There are many experienced gardeners out there to assist you as you choose seeds or small plants to start your garden. As you learn to heed the seasons, soil, sun, frost, and shade, you become more than a mere spectator of life’s cycle. Instead, you step into the role of cocreator and enhance what you nurture. No matter how large or small the size of your garden, you can benefit from growing your own organic, fresh, and nutritious food while also reveling in the depth of flavor and texture that comes from plants that have been well-tended, nurtured, and loved. As we appreciate the food we’ve grown, we can recognize the care that farmers put into the produce most of us buy at the supermarket. With this new understanding, we can acknowledge the roles other living creatures fill as participants in cultivating the cycle of life. We may even learn to peacefully coexist with the animals and insects that share perhaps too great an interest in our garden.

When we grow our food, we participate more fully in nature’s cycles and form a closer bond with Mother Earth. Knowing how to grow your own food allows for a sense of freedom and pride that you can feed and provide for yourself, one of the most basic necessities. Gratitude may fill us as we marvel at the beauty of nature and the majesty of the universe that orchestrates such natural wonders. When we allow our appreciation of life to expand, we harvest so much more than food and the taste is that much sweeter.