One of the things I wanted to work on this year was being more careful about what I eat. To me, that meant making sure I was eating well-balanced meals that made my body feel good but also that I was eating more foods that came from local and organic sources.
We've added a lot more fruits and vegetables to meals at my house and have gotten in the habit of eating only vegetarian meals three to four times a week. Some of that has to do with the cost of meat and some of it has to do with the simplicity of preparing a meat-free meal. We also got used to eating less meat, and it just feels right. Instead, we're eating way more veggies, beans and other legumes. Soups and stews have played a big role in this change as have big salads, sauteed kale with tomatoes and eggs. One thing we tried not to do was replace meat with carbs.
It's gone really well and my husband and I both feel a lot better when we eat healthily. We do notice a difference.
I've also been working on cutting out the occasional diet soda (my afternoon source of caffeine) and drinking water instead, which also feels much better.
The biggest and most time consuming change we've made is I've started to bake all of our bread. When we do eat carbs, it often is in the form of toast. I wanted to buy fresh whole wheat bread but found that it was pretty expensive. Over the last couple of months, I've been baking a loaf of whole wheat bread about every other week. It takes a little more than three hours because the bread rises twice before it's baked, but it's totally worth it. We get to eat freshly baked bread and it doesn't have any preservatives or other stuff added to it and it's much less expensive - it just requires a little time. Added bonus: it makes our house smell wonderful!
I know one day, we may not have as much time for things like baking bread. We don't have kids right now so it's just right for the two of us.
Just in case you were wondering, I have been slowly getting back to running after being sick on and off this fall. More on that Friday.
Elizabeth Templin McCamic
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2 comments:
I'm intrigued by your bread making. How are you doing this? What equipment and ingredients are you using?
My bread recipe is pretty simple. I use a mixer to combine the ingredients then I knead the bread by hand for 10 minutes. It rises in a bowl for 90 minutes then later in a loaf pan for about 60 minutes, then it bakes for about 30 minutes. Overall, it's pretty easy. It just takes some time. I like whole wheat bread, so that's what I make. It uses whole wheat flour, luke-warm water, a little honey, a little butter and yeast. But there are a lot of good recipes out there.
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