10 Days of Real Food Pledge = Nutritional Overhaul

When I recently saw a link on Yahoo to the 100 Days of Real Food site, I thought, great - another challenge to get myself involved in.  As some of you know, I am wildly successful at signing up for challenges, but not so much on actually following through and completing said challenges.  After exploring Lisa's site and seeing the impact that cutting processed foods has made on her family's health & wellness, I determined that my own children (as well as Josh & I) could use a bit of a nutritional overhaul.

I am committing us to the 10-Day Pledge.  We can totally do this for 10 days, right?  So, what's involved with this 10 Day Real Food Pledge?  Good question!!  In short - we will be eating whole foods such as fruits, veggies, dairy (kids), local meat (Josh & kids) & wild caught seafood, whole wheat and whole grains, seeds, nuts and some all natural sweeteners.  What we will be avoiding are: refined grains & sweeteners, fried & fast foods, and boxed/bottled/jarred/canned food items with more than 5 ingredients.  Will this be easy?  HECK NO - not for this sugar addicted family.  Will my girls embrace this?  Most likely not.  However, I'm going to stick to it and I am going to keep offering them as many clean, whole food options as I can.  I am going to set the example here.

To help me prepare for these 10 days, I started a binder and printed some of the important info regarding the 10 Day Pledge rules and tips.  Next, I sat with some great cookbooks, such as Happy Herbivore and Peas and Thank You and I planned a weekly menu.

The menu above is mine for the week.  Of course Josh's will vary due to his work & travel schedule, and the girls will have a slightly different menu as well (I'll post one of theirs soon).  Their menu will consist of more single-ingredient foods and baked items.  I will offer them some of our dinners though.  They will at least be introduced to foods like quinoa & chick peas.

Now, it's a matter of sticking to it - and to be less wasteful.  I plan to finish all leftovers and/or make them into different meals to keep it fun & fresh.  I will do my best to take some pictures during the week and post every few days, or do a weekly recap.

I encourage you to try this 10 Day Pledge as well!  Click HERE for the challenge rules and HERE to sign up for the pledge.  Join me!

My first juice...and I used the pulp - no waste here!

Yeah Yeah!!!  ::Happy Dance::

I made my first juice today in my new juicer (thank you again to Josh for letting me keep it!)  I have to say, all things considered, it was not at all bad.  I took a cue from my good friend Dana, and I added a couple of ice cubes, which definitely added a smoothness to the juice.  I had no idea what to expect, but I think I might get the hang of this fairly quickly.  I'm looking forward to making all sorts of juicy recipes!

Today I felt like veggies.  Straight veggies.  I had already had an apple for breakfast, so I didn't want to add that for sweetness.  I opted instead for beets & carrots which have their own sugars & sweetness.  So, what could I add to beets & carrots?  Celery and Romaine looked good!

• One medium organic beet, peeled
• 3 organic carrots, greens and tops removed
• 2 large organic stalks celery with leafy greens
• large handful red Romaine lettuce (not shown)
• 4 ice cubes

This is after adding the romaine to the celery

This is after adding the beet

The final product - my beet, celery, romaine, carrot juice!!

I missed getting a picture of the pulp!!  ARGH!  For anyone who is new to juicing, like me, the pulp was all ground up and extremely dry (makes sense, right, we juiced it!)  When I took the top off of the juicer, there was this beautiful pulp leftover.  There are lots of things I could do with this pulp, rather than toss it in the garbage disposal or into the trash can.  If I was into composting, I could add it to the compost pile.  But, since I don't compost, I wanted to find another use for it.  I read that I can stir it into batters for muffins (good way to sneak fiber into my kids!) or add it to casseroles.

For dinner tonight, I wanted a grain, so I made quinoa.  While the quinoa was simmering, I took a carnival squash (it's small, like an acorn squash), sliced it in half from top to bottom and scooped out the seeds & strings.  I sprinkled the halves with dried herbs and roasted at 425 for about 25 minutes.  When the quinoa was done, I fluffed it with a fork and added the pulp from the juice, bean sprouts and Bragg's Liquid Aminos (like a healthy soy sauce).  I added this mixture to the squash halves to stuff them, topped with a sprinkle of Daiya non-dairy cheese and baked for about 10 minutes longer.  I served this with roasted Brussels sprouts that I topped with a little Wayfare cheddar "cheese" sauce.  I got my protein (quinoa), fiber (pulp), veggies - plus some extra yumminess from the Daiya & Wayfare without using dairy products.

Stuffed squash with  Brussels sprouts

Isn't it pretty?  So colorful due to the beet pulp!

Mouth watering bite - squash, quinoa, pulp and a little bit of Daiya

Another bite of fabulousness!