By Kelly McPherson CPT, CFT, CES
Here's the scenario. You are just home from work or running the kids in a hundred different directions and the dreaded "What's for dinner?" starts to drone from several little mouths and even usually one big one. You know that you need to get something on fast before the next round of errands, homework, baths and bedtime can take place. But what to do? Quickly you scan through your fridge and pantry for something that you can fix in a hurry with the ingredients that you have on hand.
At this point, one of two things will happen. One is a nutritional miracle where you just happen to have everything in the house for a quick, yet nutrition meal of veggies, whole grains and lean meats. Every one loves it and your are praised as the hero of the day. The other, more likely, occurance is that you throw together an old standby recipe. It may not be the most nutritious, but it will work and everyone will be fed, right? Your healthy diet can wait for tomorrow?
Would you like more nutritional miracles to take place in your kitchen? Would you like to come home and throw together something that everyone loves and will feed your bodies emotionally as well as physically with lots of healthy nutrients? Of course we would. The problem is that the old standby's are easier in a pinch. Here are a few steps you can take to make sure that miracles are more likely to happen.
1. Plan. I highly recommend making a weekly dinner menu every week. Do this sometime when you are not rushed, nor stressed and when you can take the time to really think about your schedule and which days are going to need to be crockpot meals and which ones you may have a little more time. This kind of planning will drastically reduce the number of panic meals that you have each week.
2. Make a list. Make a grocery list from your menu. Pull out the recipes and actually confirm that you have everything in them in your kitchen. If you don't, put it on your list and go get it during your regularly weekly grocery trip.
3. Try something new. The problem with our old standby's is that they are usually comfort foods loaded with fat and excess calories. Get some new cookbooks. The library has tons of them. I'd recommend checking them out before buying them. Try 1-2 new recipes that are loaded with healthy foods each week. Try a new veggie, fruit or cut of meat that you hae never tried. Whatever it is, just make sure it is loaded with nutrients. You never know what might be a hit. In our family, we rate new recipes as "never again," "once in a while," "frequently, " and for the best recipes "pete and repeat." I make sure to mark the recipes with the appropriate ratings and store them in a format that I can get to them easily. This could be a card system, a book, on the computer, etc. Whatever works for you. This way when you are making your weekly menu, you will have a growing repertoire of recipes that you know that your family will eat and like and are healthy. You are creating new, old standby recipes.
A side advantage to this approach is that my kids have learned to try new things. I have put all kinds of things in front of them. Some of them, they have loved. Some of them have been hidden under the couch in an effort to avoid eating them. Give them enough new and interesting things, and they are bound to find some new stuff that they actually like.
4. Have a back-up plan. Sometimes things just don't go as planned and a day that you thought you had time to make something good turns into a day where you are tempted to through boxes of cereal on the counter and tell them to fix it themselves. Try to keep stocked the ingredients to the super quick, healthy recipes in you growing repertoire. Also, it is good to have a couple of good healthy convenience items on hand. In our house, that is a large can of tomato soup or a bag of stir fry veggies and frozen rice. No matter what I have on the menu, I always have these items in the kitchen, just in case.
Nutritional boredom is a death sentence for most diets. If you are eating the same old things, the same old things will be happening with your body. In order to make changes with your body, you MUST make changes with your diet. I have noticed that this often frustrates many of my clients and they wish that I would just put them on a specific diet or write them a menu plan. It would be so much easier. They would just do it and not think about it. Unfortunately, this approach is so much less effective. Learning to plan your meals, cook them in healthy ways and learning what you will and will not eat is so much more productive over the rest of your life.