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Can food be super yummy and actually good for you? Heck yeh!

If you read my post last month, What to Do About Halloween (and all those other holidays that follow), you have a good idea of what a full on food geek I am, and tasty desserts that are good for me are important!

I write a lot about the importance of community when it comes to food. This month I am sharing a recipe developed by my friend, Erin. Erin was a lab researcher turned homeschooling mom and midwifery student. She can’t get away from her research roots, though, and she develops really delicious recipes.

Just how good is this recipe? Taste-wise it is off the charts and will replace the pumpkin pie that I used to enjoy prior to Erin’s creation.

You may have noticed that I wrote about the Whole 30 in my last Uncommon Childhood post, and as an added bonus, Erin’s recipe is pretty darn close to Whole 30 compliance. I would even use it as a meal substitute if I was crunched for time because it is basically a meal.

Now for Erin’s recipe, for which I provide two versions. The first is Erin’s, unaltered. The second version discusses the tweaks I made to the recipe to bring is closer to compliance with the Whole 30. Enjoy! (more…)

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A really wise friend and healer framed Halloween and the upcoming holidays this way:

We are entering the sugar season and our culture is “profoundly youthful and immature” in relation to how we eat during the holiday season. Could he be more on target? Sugar – public enemy number two after wheat (see Wheat – Cut that Shit Out!) – spreader of disease and death.

The past four months have brought tremendous healing to my family (amazing how much healing there is to do given the strides we have made in the last three years!) and we can see more clearly than ever what sugar does to us. Best of all, we are much more capable of resisting it because we have overwhelmingly broken its grip. In fact, we are sweetener free. No sugar, honey, maple syrup or any other sweetener.

Just so you don’t think we are only hard core food freaks with super sugar avoiding powers (which we are), we didn’t get here over night – it took five years. And we stumbled A LOT!

You can read about the stumbles and many lessons here: So Much Sugar in Two Years! Mistakes happen, and we have to be kind to ourselves. Breaking from the American sugar/food/emotional reward system is tough!

Now on to Halloween – the Sugar Bowl Kickoff.

What to do about it? Most kids are going to pound their candy and their parents will be enjoying some too. I lived that frenzy all of my trick-or-treat years and beyond, and I have the mouth full of crowns and mercury to prove it.

Because the candy that people normally eat for Halloween is just plain nasty – full of wax, colors, preservatives and who knows what else – I have never let my now eight year old eat it. We trade his trick-or-treat haul for a toy and an organic dark chocolate candy bar. The funny thing is that this year, when our eating is as good as it can get, he doesn’t even want the candy bar. He is just in it for the romp through the neighborhood and the toy.

If an eight year old rejects really yummy chocolate, you know that breaking the sugar addiction is possible.

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years will quickly follow (talk about a one, two punch – all of that wheat AND sugar), and what are you going to do when those treats start popping up everywhere you go? I will be blogging some more between now and then, so check out Moving Strongly Forward for motivation and ideas for conquering the holiday treats.

Until then, just do your best to help your kids (and yourself) break away from the usual Halloween nonsense.

Make it fun.

Get a substitute for the candy – it doesn’t have to be a big thing. It doesn’t have to be a thing at all – it can be an event. Maybe bowling or putt-putt golf. Just something besides sugar.

If you want to do some advanced reading and get a head start on kicking the holiday junk food in the pants, check out the Whole 30. If you dare to take this healing food adventure, your life will be powerfully, profoundly and positively changed.

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The last days of summer are here in North Carolina, with peaches, grapes, figs and other fruits preparing to rest, and apples are charging forward. But…there are still amazing blueberries to be picked. We picked 26 pounds of the best I have ever tasted last week, and picking will be good into the beginning of September. I have a lot of plans for those berries, and I want to share a great recipe with you in case you can still get your hands on some too. This recipe is fantastic because it is easy, fast, raw and super healthy. (more…)

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I’m not saying these are perfect, but I’ve run through 77 iterations of my recipe and this is the best I have made yet and I’m done messing around. I’ve tried yogurt and cottage cheese and buttermilk and all sorts of other stuff but these hit the spot and I can walk into just about any kitchen and whip these up in no time.

These are not some sort of crunchy earth muffin tree hugging whole wheat flapjack pancakes. No sir, that’s not what we are here for – this is about pancake delight, not a high-fiber diet or bonding with mother nature. This is about pleasing that little kid down in your soul (the one your job keeps trying to wrestle to the ground and strangle to death, slowly, while it smiles gleefully) and your real little kids sitting at the breakfast table with silverware in hand chanting “pancakes! pancakes!” (more…)

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From the time he was little Elisha has been my grocery store buddy. He loved nothing more than to have my undivided attention for thirty minutes each way in the car to talk my ears off. He loved the anticipation of wondering if I had a stray quarter in my purse so he could ride the yellow horse that neighed and played the stereotypical cowboy music outside the grocery store. He loved to push the cart.

Our grocery store has two sizes of carts: the regular sized ones that were strewn all over the parking lot and inside the store, and the few and far between, super huge carts which are identifiable by their red rims and the trail of duckling children strung out behind whichever Mama is pushing.

Small families do not use these carts. In fact, I think most of the members of the “red cart club” know each other… and a good proportion of us home school our kids, which means that we take our kids WITH us to the store on a Wednesday afternoon. Come to think of it, maybe that red rim is a warning sign to all of the other shoppers: “Look out, family of eight coming your way!”

Sometimes I need two red carts.

Elisha pushes that cart with the concentration of an Indy car driver. He always cites the rule to me upon entering the store:

• “If I touch anybody or anything with my cart I lose the privilege to drive, right Mom?”
• “Right.”

I think driving the cart must be the video game deprived child’s answer to “Driver.”

He maneuvers that cart around big displays of chips and candy, milk and meat, peering under the handle bar with his eyes peeled for old ladies with walkers and little children who’ve lost their parents.

Survive the obstacle course and win the game. Five extra points if he doesn’t break the eggs.

It occurred to me, in the produce section of one grocery expedition, that among the many things we teach in the grocery store, I have overlooked Geography. It happened over a five pound bag of carrots, conspicuously marked with “grown in Canada.”

• “Look Elisha, these are Canadian carrots… remember that carrot farm in Nova Scotia where we took a rest and they told us all about carrot cultivation and harvest?”
• “Yeah, and we ate strawberries…” he added.

We reminisced about that lovely afternoon as we picked up our onions and potatoes, grown in California and Idaho, respectively.

The Games

When Hannah and Ben were two I made grocery bingo games.

• On each card were pictures of various items found in the store.
• I provided each kid with a page of dot stickers and they passed a pleasant hour hunting for tomatoes and artichokes while I shopped.

Later we made math games and treasure hunts out of our shopping trips.

• Each child has $15 of imaginary money to spend, they need something from each food group to win.
• Older children figured unit costs for canned and boxed goods with a goal of saving the family $1 per trip
• A list of ten obscure items was provided to each child and the winner was the fellow who found the most of the “treasures” on his list.

Recently the oldest two have taken over half of the shopping list and take their own red cart around the store.

I’ve decided to institute a new game: Grocery Geography.

I’m going to have two versions:

The little people version: in which they are given a list of countries and we look together for items originating in those countries.

The continents version: in which they carry a laminated map and add dots for each food they find for a particular continent.

The geography super stars version: in which points are awarded for each country you find that no one else finds, and each food you find that no one else finds.

• Here’s a hint: spend time in the deli section where the fish and meats are. Look also in the produce section (for carrots!)
• Keep in mind that the foods must actually be PRODUCED in a foreign country, not just be a parody of food from that country. Example: Thai Coconut Milk does not count towards Thailand because it is produced in southern California.

Let me know if you decide to play along and send in the weirdest foods and countries your kids find… I’m sure the results will be different in different grocery stores around the country!