Whole 30, with kids, day 1

Ok, so it starts with food. If you haven't read my previous post about Whole30 this will not make much sense.

God bless my husband for embarking on this adventure with me. We have 3 little kids ages 6, 4, and 2 so I was very nervous about doing this; however, doing it as a family is the only way I will be successful.  

Josh and I have like to eat healthy. We eat whole wheat, raw veggies, fruit and meat.  We like our ice cream, yogurt and cheese for cedilla's too!

However, after reading "It starts with food" I realized how much of what we eat, and feed our kids, really do affect us.  Sorry to all those crazy people that I've called "whole grain and nuts" in the past.... apparently there is actually a lot to eating that way:)

I ordered 2 cookbooks: Everyday paleo, and Well Fed. Then Josh and I spent 3 hours pouring over them to create our first week plan of meals. It was very very overwhelming and frustrating. I have to admit we were very short with each other as we anticipated all the things we would NOT be eating come the morrow......

March 9th, 2013

So, 7:30am on a very snowy Saturday morning off I go to the grocery store. after getting around 5 hours of sleep with our kiddos being sick and not sleeping well.

I spent 1.5 hours at King Soopers, our normal store, trying to get as much as I could from the place I knew. I skipped the frozen food, dairy and pretty much 1/2 of the store we usually buy a lot from. My cart was full and I spent our regular grocery bill for the week, and I was only 1/2 done!

While I was gone, Josh was busy cleaning out our pantry and fridge of anything "non-whole30" approved. A lot got thrown away and some stored downstairs.

Next I went to Whole Foods. I have never shopped in there before. That is where those "crazy nutty" people shop that have lots of money. I swear they have organic and all natural EVERYTHING!

Anyways, the store clerks were amazingly helpful and very very nice. In fact, so where the other shoppers.  It took me almost 2 hours to complete my list, but I did have to ask a lot of questions like what is the difference between all natural and organic ground beef. (All natural is the range free, meat where cows live like cows should and no hormones added. Organic means the cows ate only organic certified food, plus all the other stuff). I found out what Coconut amino's is. I wasn't sure if it was a seed, flour, oil or where to find it. It actually looks like soy sauce a bit.

So this shopping trip was double what we normally spend in a week. YIKES!!!!!!!  However, to be fair I did have to buy a lot of basics like Almond flour, coconut flour, etc that will last the whole 30 days.  However, it was QUITE the shock!

I used the rule of thumb from the book. Buy all natural meats/eggs/etc. Then buy organic veggies and fruits that you'll eat the skin of. If you are going to peel it, then just buy regular produce.  That helped save me some, but not enough to erase the sticker shock of my bill.

Breathe. This is for your health. Breathe. It will taste great!

Finally home after being gone 4 hours and shopping at 2 stores I was tired; however, all those groceries had to be put away.... with many little hands "helping" and waiting for their lunch.  They love chicken nuggets, carrots, ranch to dip in, apples and milk. Hm..... they got lunch meat, apple slices, celery with sunflower butter on them (raved about in the books) and water.

My 2 year old ate the apples. My 4 year old ate the meat and apples. My 6 year old at the meat. All of them hated the celery with sunflower butter on it. At $7 a jar I was not happy. Especially after the books I read said "A great alternative. You won't notice the difference". Yeah right.  I had to agree with my kids it was kind of gross. Now I'm wondering what I can use that for instead.....

Then I spent hours in the kitchen storing all the fresh veggies and fruit and meat. I was so proud of myself after looking in our pantry and fridge to see such color of fresh stuff!  My kids, were not so impressed to find their goldfish and cheezeits gone.

Next I started trying to make some things to get us through the week. I made Kale chips. I had never heard of kale, let alone cooked with it. They were super easy to cook, and I think they are awesome!  They crumple like a fallen leaf, melt in your mouth like cotton candy, taste like a thin chip.....and are super healthy. I was impressed.

Then I tried making sweet potato chips. You have to fry these in coconut oil (which is very hard like a brittle lard.... but tasty). I tried one batch. FAILURE! So then I decide to put the rest in the oven and bake them. FAILURE! So.... I chopped up the rest of my peeled potatoes to make french fries later. I wonder how those will turn out?

Next I moved onto making homemade Ranch for the kiddos. HORRIBLE FAILURE!!!! and smart me tried to make a double batch right off to save time.  There went all my olive oil.  You HAVE to use extra light olive oil and add the oil into the mixture really slow....

Onto cooking dinner. Josh made a wonderful acorn squash stuffed with a ground pork/pear/pecan hash. It was so wonderful! Success #1.  This kids didn't eat this at all. They are starting to get hungry. And grumpy. And grumpy.........

I also made "rocket fuel" that is basically cut up nuts mixed with dates (sticky mudders to cut up!) egg whites and baked. The kids survived on that for dinner, at about 5 minutes till bedtime when they were starving.

Day 1 is done. All I can say is that the shopping was a nightmare b/c of buying crazy stuff I have never heard of, but I am so pleasantly full and ready to be on day 2.