Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Health Starts With Breakfast

Note: I am changing links and book review to tomorrow so I can finish the thought I began yesterday. If you haven't yet read yesterday's post, go there first.

As I told you, cooking at all was daunting to me as a teenage bride. However, breakfast was terrifying! I know, it's hard for most people to believe that frying eggs could make one nervous, but I'm not really like "most people". (You've probably figured that out by now, :-) For the first few years of marriage, we only ate a cooked breakfast on Saturday mornings, and it was always prepared by my husband with the exception of my operating the toaster. (Yes, I am being serious.)

Once I had children who were eating table food, I realized that I couldn't skip breakfast, feed them doughnuts or have my husband fix breakfast before leaving for work (his day started at 4:30 A.M.). It was very gradual, but one thing led to another.

One week, after buying six boxes of all our favorite kinds of cereal at a phenomenal deal of 40 cents a box or something like that (after sales, coupons and rebates), I realized that my children didn't particularly like cereal. Those boxes sat on the shelf until I finally had to give them away. So, I took the plunge into that famous beginning step of "crunchy mama" and made my own granola. They loved it! Even after a couple mornings....even after the first week!

That gave me a bit of confidence, and I began to try to cook. I found recipes for homemade things like pancakes, biscuits and syrup. I tried scrambled eggs, then fried eggs, and eventually omelets and frittatas. I quit buying muffin mixes and found out how to make my own muffins really easily.

As I learned about real food, I realized that a lot of our breakfast foods were real since I was making more and more without all the man-made additives and chemicals. Then, a friend told me about a really weird idea...smoothies. Now, we had eaten smoothies on occasion, but they usually gave my kids terrible headaches because they contained milk (an allergic food for my kids), so I had quit serving them. But my friend is vegan and she had a different idea of smoothies....green smoothies. Not green from food coloring or as a St. Patrick's Day marketing ploy...green from spinach. Spinach? Yes. She wanted us to drink spinach. Can you think of anything more gross? I couldn't, so I ignored her recommendation.

Finally, I ran out of new ideas as to how to include vegetables with breakfast, so I checked up on it. I made our first one in my VitaMix fully expecting my children to complain (at best). Flashback to early granola days....they LOVED them! Even after a couple of mornings in a row...even after the first week. The really strange thing was...I did, too. I, the former frequent doughnut eater, LOVE green smoothies.

Tomorrow, I will give you some neat links I've found about this surprising breakfast which we enjoy at least 3 times a week (or until I run out of spinach and fresh fruit). However, I will include one of our favorite combinations in case you can't wait to try it in your home! :-)

2 c. spinach
1 frozen banana (peeled, of course)
1 c. frozen grapes
1 c. strawberries
1 c. water
1 c. ice cubes

That's it! No sugar--frozen fruit is especially sweet. No milk--the banana makes it creamy. No bitter taste--spinach pretty much only contributes to the color, not the taste.

Who knows where else this will lead us? I've dabbled in healthier lunches and dinners, too, but I still have a LONG way to go there. At least I wasn't in the habit of doughnuts for dinner.

If you try a green smoothie and like it, please let me know. I'd also love to read your comments on your own health journey.

3 comments:

  1. Great post, Jen. I posted on this, but I think I will put another post up tomorrow, and a few other days, with some of our healthy recipes.

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  2. Hey! Let me know when you post it so I'll be sure and stop by.

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  3. I put up a few of our starter changes. We have more but kids are starting to stir this morning. I will post them later.

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