Whole Green Love

Raising a child who is compassionate, independent, honest, confident, and possesses a strong work ethic is something that my husband and I will strive for each day in raising our daughter. Lyla isn’t even two yet, but I know that the decisions we make every day, the way we talk to her and to each other, and the activities we engage her in shape her character and the person she will become.

Something else I want her to possess is a healthy relationship with food. I hope that she enjoys spending time in the kitchen and can learn from me the importance of cooking from scratch, family meals, and nourishing foods.

Am I capable of raising a child who loves fast food and everything processed?? Oh, I hope not! Talk about a nightmare.

(Lyla looks really fancy here. She isn’t usually all dressed up like this. It was Easter morning.)

Lyla’s little library of books is extensive. And I’m thankful that she loves to read. We sit so long sometimes and just read book after book. It’s such a fun and relaxing time with her. So, of course, I sneak books in there that will cultivate her love for food. I mean, why not? Start them young, right? Here is a list of our favorite real foodie books.

1. Growing Vegetable Soup discusses the process of growing a garden from seeds and sprouts, all the way to the exciting finish of preparing a meal with the food you helped grow in your own backyard.
2. In the Garden (Sorry! I can’t find this one online to link to!) is an adorable book about children picking fruits and vegetables from bushes, stalks, vines, and trees. It is even printed on recycled material! This is a great book to introduce kids to the idea of having a garden in your backyard or picking fruit at a local farm.
3. Big Red Barn. I love this book. It’s the perfect book to begin the discussion with your kids of where food comes from. The process of food certainly doesn’t start at the grocery store and a feedlot is not a normal environment for raising animals. The Big Red Barn paints a beautiful picture of animals living as animals should.
4. What Color is Your Apple? explores the colors of many fruits and vegetables. This book includes real photos of the foods so your child can more easily identify new foods when they see them in real life. It’s fun to go through this book and ask, “what is your favorite vegetable on this page?” or “point to all of the foods that you have tasted before.”
5. I like vegetables. This touch and feel book is wonderful for little ones, with bright pictures and great textures.

Which real food books do you share with your children?

This post was shared on Fat Tuesday.

Does anyone else feel like they will literally die if the weather doesn’t warm up soon? I do. Our Wisconsin Spring has not happened yet, that is for sure.

So, I’ve been trying to make food that reminds me of warmer weather. Like Lime Tilapia Tacos! They remind me of fun trips our family has taken to Mexico and grilling out in the summer. Throw a margarita in there and you’ve got yourself the perfect meal!

While I would have loved to grill this tilapia, it was about 30 degrees outside this past weekend. Not grilling weather. I settled for baking this in a little foil pouch in the oven instead. These tacos were so tasty!

Lime Tilapia Tacos

2 large tilapia fillets

Olive oil

1 lime, cut in half. Use one half for the lime juice and slice the other half into very thin slices

Sea salt and pepper, to taste

1 mango, peeled and diced

Corn tortillas

Shredded cabbage

Avocado

Sour cream

Preheat your oven to 375°F. Lay a sheet of foil on a baking sheet and drizzle with enough olive oil to coat the surface where you will place the tilapia. Place the tilapia fillets side by side on top of the oil coated surface. Drizzle more oil over the top of the fillets.

Using half of the lime, squeeze the juice over the tilapia and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place thin slices of lime over the top of the fish. Put half of the diced mango on top of the tilapia and close your foil packet.

Place the tilapia in the oven until it is cooked through and flakes with a fork. Our fish took about 15-20 minutes to cook.

Just before your fish is ready, heat your tortillas. We zapped them in the microwave for 15 seconds or so, but the better way to do it would be to heat each side in a pan on the stove.

Assemble the tacos with pieces of the baked tilapia and mango and top with shredded cabbage, avocado, extra mango, sour cream, and my favorite…a little hot sauce.

This recipe is the perfect reminder that simple, real food ingredients can really pack a punch in the flavor department. Nothing complicated or fussy. The light taste of the tilapia pairs perfectly with the zesty lime and sweet mango flavor.

What summer flavors are you anxious for?

This recipe was shared on Fat Tuesday.

Did you know that the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) recently submitted a petition to the FDA to “amend the standard of identity” of milk and 17 other dairy products?

This change would mean that the dairy industry will be able to add artificial sweeteners to milk and dairy products, but the addition will not need to be disclosed on the food label.

What are examples of some of the dairy products that would be included in this change?

• Yogurt
• Half and half
• Heavy cream
• Evaporated milk
• Eggnog
• Whipping cream
• Sour cream
• And obviously, milk

I don’t know about you but many of the dairy products listed above are on our grocery list each week. I believe I have a right to know exactly what’s in them.

Why this change, you ask?

Essentially, because the dairy industry thinks that part of the solution to childhood obesity would be to remove some of the sugar in flavored milk and replace some of it with artificial sweetener, thus reducing the total calories of the milk provided in schools. Wow, what heroes.

The thought of IDFA and NMPF is that labeling phrases like “reduced calorie” (which under today’s regulations would need to be included if sugar was removed and artificial sweetener added) would lead to confusion and displeasure in children, which results in fewer sales for the dairy industry. Their solution is to change the definition of milk altogether so that toxic substances like artificial sweeteners can be added to your milk and dairy products without any labeling or marketing key words to tip consumers off.

Honestly, if the food industry said that they were going to add a super special healthy ingredient to our food supply that would promise to eliminate cancer from this earth forever, I still believe that consumers deserve the right to know that it’s being put into their food. Each and every ingredient that is in food products needs to be disclosed. No exceptions.

Aspartame is one of the artificial sweeteners that the petition references will be used should this be approved. Aspartame accounts for over 75% of the adverse food reactions reported to the FDA. (Source)

Interesting piece of information: Of 166 studies done on aspartame, 74 of them were funded by the artificial sweetener industry. Of those 74 studies, none of them found any problems with aspartame. The other 92 studies, which were independently funded, over 90% of them found something wrong with aspartame. (Source) Hmm. Additionally, there is a long list of reactions that can come from the consumption of aspartame and it has also been associated with triggering certain chronic diseases. Click here and here to learn more.

Submit your comment to the FDA (they are taking public comments until May 21, 2013) to let them know what you think about the proposed petition. I submitted the comment below to the Federal Register and I invite you to do the same. Click here to link to the Federal Register.

The dairy industry should be ashamed of their efforts to allow artificial sweeteners to not be visible on the food labels of their products. The research related to the dangers of artificial sweeteners is clear and very recent CDC research has shown that despite the decrease in caloric intake, obesity rates are not declining – a clear indicator that a calorie is not a calorie when it comes to weight loss and that artificial sweeteners to reduce sugar/calories in our kid’s beverages is not the answer.

It saddens me to see that the dairy industry is creating the appearance of being concerned about public health when it’s clear they are only in it for the increased profit of their business.

As very conscious and cautious consumer who goes out of my way to provide real, whole, and nourishing foods for my family, I will certainly steer clear of any company who goes down the path of adding artificial sweetener to their milk should this be allowed. I am confident that if this is passed that there are companies with integrity and passion for true optimal health that will avoid any additives in their milk. Only those types of companies will get my business.

The FDA has fallen out of favor with people who work hard to source real food ingredients for their families. The state of our nation’s health and a quick look around the grocery store shows that much of the food allowed and advertised in this country is not food at all anymore. The decision to allow the dairy industry to amend the identity of milk and other dairy products would certainly elicit further distrust in the organization and further damage the health of our nation. Please deny these requests.

We are super excited to be a part of promoting the Healthy Life Summit, which is streaming for FREE from March 24^th – 30^th! This summit was organized by the blog network we are a part of, Village Green Network.

The Healthy Life Summit is a FREE 7-day, online virtual conference that features speakers like Sally Fallon Morell, Joel Salatin, Donna Gates, Daniel Vitalis, Matt Stone, Julia Ross, and Chris Kresser (and 28 more). You can see the full list of speakers here.

I jump up and down and shout “woohoo!” in my mind every time I look at the line-up of this awesome event! There are 5 tracks of topics: Healthy Eating, Healthy Body, Healthy Babies & Kids, Healthy Living, and Healthy World.

Some of the topics that will be covered include:

• Traditional food diets
• How to transition your family to real food
• Techniques for making real food easy and affordable
• Why preconception and pregnancy diets matter
• The dangers of GMO foods
• How to make homemade beauty products that are safe enough to eat
• Sustainable, grass-fed agriculture and why it’s important to your health

I just did a little SQUEEEEE inside because I’m so excited about this conference. I literally cannot contain myself!

This is sweet because nowhere else could you listen to this incredible lineup of speakers and topics for FREE. If you have a life anything like mine though, you won’t be available to hang out and listen to this streaming for the full week of March 24^th.

For that reason, consider preordering the download to the entire Healthy Life Summit for only $49 until March 23, 2013. By preordering, you will be able to listen to this whenever and wherever you want.

If you wait to order the Healthy Life Summit download until the conference is over, it will cost $199. Boo.

Preorder today at 75% off that price – just $49!

How does this work?

1. Click here to register today! You will get email updates to let you know more information about when you can listen to your favorite speakers and catch all of the topics you don’t want to miss!
2. Preorder the download package today so that you get the super reduced price of $49 (that is 75% off the actual price!) In all, the download includes 35 audio recordings and 35 video slideshows.
3. Download the full conference package on March 24^th! You can certainly listen to the conference via live stream, or just listen at your leisure!

This guy, Joel Salatin, is seriously my favorite. Has anyone else read any of his books? “Folks, This Ain’t Normal!” is so great!

The Healthy Life Summit is all of our favorite topics wrapped into one amazing event! We hope you’ll join us!

Back in January, I posted about how to make a meal planning board. Since then I’ve been meaning to blog more about how we plan meals in our house and share all the tips and tricks I can. I think meal planning is a must-have skill if you want to incorporate real, nourishing food recipes in your life. That skill however, takes practice and some time to cultivate. Eating well on the fly, with no plan, and no purposefully purchased groceries in your home usually doesn’t end well.

The question I get most often is where I find my recipes. We have a bookshelf FULL of cookbooks. Do I use them? Not really. Only sometimes. There are a few recipes that we go back to in that shelf, but Nic and I have this weird thing about not really ever making the same recipe twice. I get bored. So…for that reason, Pinterest is my main go-to for meal planning. There is always something new and awesome to run into on Pinterest.

Here are six tips on how to use Pinterest for planning your real food meals.

1. Pin recipes throughout the week. I spend a few minutes each day scrolling through Pinterest on my phone on my lunch break or just before I hit the hay for the night. This way I slowly collect recipes throughout the week, and have about five recipes in the hopper that I can incorporate into our menu for the following week.
2. Carefully read through each recipe before you get pin happy. I’ve learned on Pinterest, that in a non-real food world, it’s easy to accidentally pin a recipe that includes something like boxed yellow cake mix, condensed cream of whatever soup, and food dye galore. No likey. My censoring my pins I prevent my Food & Drink board from being cluttered with recipes that I’ll never go back to and that my body will hate me for.
3. Pinning recipes that your friends pinned is great. I find that many of my friends have the same taste in food that I do, although some don’t share the same obsession passion for real food. Be careful what makes it to your boards. That being said, use your real food saviness (I just made that word up) to substitute fake ingredients for wholesome options. Does the recipe call for white sugar? Use honey instead. Are they recommending canned gravy? Use homemade bone broth. Cool Whip or canned whipped cream? Make your own with organic heavy whipping cream. If a recipe looks like bad news at first glance, take another look and see how you can improve upon it.
4. Use key word searches to find real food recipes out there in the Pinterest realm. Even typing in the words “real food” into the search bar brings up some great stuff, if you aren’t looking for a specific kind of recipe. Search “real food mac and cheese” and you’ve hit the mother load.
5. Read through every recipe to assess how much time it will take to make. For weekday meals, I only save recipes that take 30 minutes or less from start to finish. Consider creating a separate board on Pinterest for quick recipes. This will be your go-to for planning weekly meals. I love spending time in the kitchen, but not on busy weeknights. Long prep recipes are great for the weekend, but seem daunting when you get home from work at 5pm or later and have to make dinner, get kids bathed and in bed, work out, and accomplish the million other things you have going on.

Sometimes I feel like technology can suck up a lot of my time, but certain websites and apps can really be lifesavers in keeping your kitchen running on all cylinders.

Since we are on the topic of meal planning, our friend Emily at Holistic Squid has an amazing offer that I have got to share. For those of you who just cannot get into meal planning, don’t have the time, or don’t like making decisions, Emily’s Real Food for the Busy Home subscription is seriously awesome. This meal planning subscription provides you with the shopping list, menu/quick prep schedule, and recipes to get you through every week. Click here to check it out.

Do you use Pinterest to find real food recipes? If you do, can you share a recent favorite?

This post was shared on Fat Tuesday.