Enter the terrifying world of whole food lunchbox lunches

Now, I whole heartedly approve of the new school lunch regulations in the US. I think is brilliant that our nation's kiddos are being fed food that is better for their little bodies and little brains. I have seen the menu at our children's school. It has improved a great deal from when I was a kid. They even have fresh, local fruits and veggies!

However, school lunches still definitely don't meet my food guidelines. Plus, I hate to push it when it comes to my kid's weird food allergies. They have something on the menu almost every day that my son is allergic to, and at five years old, sometimes he chooses what looks good without considering the potential for an anaphylactic reaction.

And now to reiterate the title of this post: enter the terrifying world of whole food lunchbox lunches. If you think trying to scrape together a nice lunch for the office without using processed food is difficult, try making one for a picky kid without the ability to heat up their lunch and about 15 minutes to actually eat it. All without being wasteful, as I hate the packaging waste involved in most lunches from home.

My first step was to invest in some more containers. Reusable baggies, little sandwich boxes, itty bitty plastic containers, thermoses, nice sturdy water bottles, BPA-free plastic silverware that I intend to reuse but won't cry if it doesn't make it home, and good quality lunch boxes were the first things I rounded up to make sure I'd be able to pack my kiddos lunches without wasting 16 plastic bags a day. Seriously, having handy places to stick all the fresh, good stuff makes for much easier lunch packing.

Next, I had to come up with some ideas that are portable and easy enough to pack for lunch every day. I knew that making their lunch prep as quick and painless as possible was going to be necessary if I was ever going to actually accomplish it. My grand plan? Fill up their lunches with fresh, raw fruits and veggies, a little protein, and a very small, but yummy dessert to keep up morale during the long school day.

And now some ideas for each of these things-

Veggies: Celery, baby carrots, broccoli, snap peas, baked sweet potato chips, bell pepper strips, cucumber slices, side salad

Fruits: grapes, apple slices misted with lemon juice so they don't brown, orange sections, fresh peaches and other stone fruit, bananas, bing cherries, pomegranate

Protein: yogurt, cheese slices, chicken or turkey salad, peanut butter for dipping, almond butter and honey sandwiches (on homemade bread, of course), mixed nuts, hummus, chicken and vegetable soup, lettuce wraps filled with shredded turkey and dilly Greek yogurt

Dessert: no bake chocolate peanut butter bars , zucchini or pumpkin bread, oatmeal pumpkin cookies , a square of dark chocolate, homemade trail mix with chocolate, or your family's favorite homemade dessert in a little bitty portion (I would feel awful for my kiddo's teachers if I pumped them full of sugar at lunch, since now that we eat a lot less of it, they get really nutty while under it's sticky influence.)

Water makes for a perfectly acceptable drink at lunch, and since my kiddos take a water bottle to school anyhow, they just grab it for lunch, too. If your school allows water bottles from home, I highly suggest taking them up on the offer. Remember how many kids put their mouth on the water fountain when you were little?? Yuck..just yuck.

Hold the white sugar, please!

Cutting back on our white sugar intake has been one of the most rewarding aspects of our new, whole food, diet. There are so many reasons to lay off the processed sweeteners: it greatly reduces overall calorie intake, it lowers the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, it improves dental health, and simply because they ARE processed. Aside from the tangible health benefits, we feel better. One beverage made with an average amount of white sugar and I'm ready to ralph.

I'll start by sharing a few facts about sugar. Did you know that much of the sugar found in processed foods is actually beet sugar? Along that vein, most beets are genetically modified to be 'Round-Up ready'. If you're working to eliminate GMOs in your diet, processed sugar is one ingredient that you must avoid. Even cane sugar is highly processed and doesn't meet nutritional needs other than calories from carbohydrates. High fructose corn syrup, despite really not being quite as evil as it's been made out to be in recent years, it is HIGHLY processed and corn is a highly genetically modified crop. Ergo, we don't use it.

You don't have to cut out sweets all together when you stop eating the sugar we all grew up with. There are many alternatives to sweeten your food and beverage without using cane or beet sugar.

• Raw honey
• Maple syrup (but only the real stuff)
• Molasses
• Stevia (though you've got to watch stevia based sweeteners for 'icky' ingredients)
• Fruit

Raw honey, though calorie rich, provides many health benefits as well as a sweet treat. Molasses is rich in iron. Stevia, though more processed than I care to use regularly, is a great alternative to more questionable low-calorie sweeteners for diabetics or people looking to cut calories from sugars. Fruit is an obvious choice, as it's obviously naturally made and provides more nutrients than you're average sweetener.

There are so many ways to use less processed sweeteners if you're willing to get just a little creative. Honey and molasses are great for baking, but stevia is not very effective in that department. Maple syrup is wonderful for far more than pancakes and waffles. You can use it to sweeten yogurt or oatmeal. Use fruit frozen in ice cubes to sweeten cold drinks, or even pureed fruit in baked goods or yogurt.

You can even grow and process the stevia plant at home, which is very appealing to do-it-yourselfers like me. Maple syrup, in the right climate and with the presence of sugar maples, can also be tapped and processed by relative beginners without much expense or effort. If you cared to keep bees, you could have your very own buzzy honey-makers right there in your back yard. Knowing precisely how your food is processed because you've processed it yourself is a great way to make sure that you know exactly what is going into what you eat, and in my most humble of opinions, it feels good to be able to provide my own food.

P.S., Sorry I haven't posted in so long. Sometimes, life really gets in the way, you know?

Pick your poison-a strategy to succeed as a whole food household

If you're making the transition to whole foods, I'm sure there is some food you have been unable to find a satisfactory replacement for. I'm here today to tell you that that's okay. Go buy one thing you really miss. Seriously! It isn't going to hurt you or your family too badly to have an occasional junky, processed food.

It's tough to convince kids (and sometimes husbands) that the whole food lifestyle is really worth it. Sometimes stress may drive you to madness in the absence of your favorite chocolates. I get it. I really, really do (I'll be honest and tell you that my favorite Russell Stover's S'more Big Bite is sitting in my lap as I write this). I propose that by giving just a little, you can make eating whole foods less stressful for you and help your family feel like they aren't giving up so much.

I accomplish this by allowing each member of my family to 'pick their poison' on our bi-weekly trip to the grocery store. They are given no guidelines as to what to pick. It doesn't have to be an organic whole food. It doesn't even have to have any nutritional value at all. They get to choose one thing they've really, really missed and we buy it (but only a small amount). My poisons have been everything from less-than-whole-food chocolate to that zippy mayonnaise-like substance. My husband typically picks white bread (though the white bread I buy him nearly meets our normal guidelines), some of my kids' favorite cheats are store-bought macaroni and cheese, toaster pastries, and juice boxes that contain little to no real juice.

These foods were not part of my original plan. They certainly don't fit in with the healthier diet that I want to be feeding my family. That's okay, though. We, as in..well..everyone, aren't perfect. That's okay. Embrace it. Be practical. Take a deep breath and let it go.

Eating whole foods can be a lot of work. It can be a very big adjustment. It doesn't have to be miserable, exhausting, or boring, though. If you're working to come up with clever ideas to feed your family food that they love that is actually good for them, you deserve a whole heap of credit. Credit yourself by letting your family eat cake. Cake with white sugar in it. White sugar and white flour if you're really a wild one.

Tell me, what's your poison??

A little late..but think of Earth Day every day!

I realize it comes a few days late, but I've had this post brewing for a while. April 22 was Earth Day. People all over pick up trash, are more conscious of recycling habits, and many go out and plant a tree. That's wonderful! Don't you think we should all be more conscious of the way the things we do and the products we use affect our planet every day, though?
One of the biggest things we do for our planet's sake in our house is avoiding disposable stuff, and also finding uses for stuff that would normally be disposed of. Using something once and then throwing it away is very common in our society today. It makes a lot of trash and burns through a lot of resources. Here are some tips you can implement in your household to stop some of the waste.

1. Use REAL plates. I know that dishes stink. I, for one, hate doing dishes (we've never had a dish washer). However, our family of 5 would throw away a minimum of 15 paper plates every day if we used them all the time. That's a lot of wasted paper. I am alright with the occasional paperware for barbecues or birthday parties, but I can't stomach the waste of using paper (or styrofoam, which is even worse) for every meal. Buy dishes that you love and you'll find yourself using them more often.

2. Buy some cloth napkins. They aren't all that expensive, and they are honestly much nicer to use than paper napkins. Plus, they come in fabulous colors and patterns, and they make your family feel fancy.

3. Keep a stash of refillable water bottles on hand. If you don't like your tap water (I don't), purchase a filtering system or buy refillable jugs at the grocery store.

4. You can make reusable sandwich-type baggies by sewing laminated cotton fabric into a bunch of handy sizes, or there are products out there that serve the same, use it again and again, purpose. You can even throw them in the dishwasher.

5. There are lots of folks out there that would LOVE to have your old tattered denim for sewing projects. Place an ad on Craigslist or on a local buy and sell site on Facebook. Chances are someone would love to come pick them up. The same goes for most fabrics. If they are too tattered to donate or resell, you can probably still find someone who can use them for something.

6. Buy in bulk. Buying in bulk reduces the amount of packaging used and you make less trips to the store. Plus, you're always prepared! No ice storm or hurricane is going to find you out of food or toliet paper if you buy in bulk. The bulk area at our local food co-op is also MUCH cheaper than buying the same food boxed in the aisles.

7. Use glass food storage containers or heavy duty plastic containers rather than the 'use it again..or don't' variety. I found the temptation to throw those ones out when they got gross almost irresistable.

8. Opt out of using facial tissues. Buy a couple hankies for each family member instead. My nose doesn't get so red and sore during allergy season and there is not a very tempting box of tissues for my small children to empty all over the floor.

9. Use real rags to clean. They work better, and you won't burn through a whole roll of paper towels every time you clean the house. I'm certain there are some old, holey t-shirts around that can be cut into handy, light-weight rags that you can use over and over again.

10. Start asking yourself every time you buy something, "How much of this will be thrown away?" A lot of packaging is nothing but waste. Nothing lasts forever. The product itself will someday have to find a home in the big trash-heap in the sky. Before you puchase something, think about what you would have to do to responsibly dispose of it, which will inevitably happen. Can you repurpose the item if and when it quits having the ability to perform it's original purpose?

11. Make your own cleaners whenever possible. It will keep you from throwing out the empty spray bottles full of residual chemicals. Find some easy, all natural ways in my post about natural cleaning here: http://therealfoodhouseholdresolution.blogspot.com/

Mostly, I'm asking everyone to be more conscious of their actions and how they impact the planet. Our kids, grandkids, and great grandkids have to live here long after we're gone. Take a small step to help preserve our world. Walk your kids the two blocks to school when it's nice out. Recycle and reuse what you can. Turn off the lights when you leave. Turn off the water if you aren't using it right then. If everyone would take part in small scale conservation, it could help to ensure future generations a healthy place to live. Another bonus? In the long run, these tips will actually save you money.

Do you have any great tips to keep the waste to a minimum at your house? Please share!

P.S., the picture is a fabulous Earth picture that my wonderful son made for me at preschool.