Start Eating Healthy: Top Ten Tips

The most common question that gets messaged to me is:  What is the easiest thing I can do to start eating better?

Eating healthy can be hard and time consuming.  There are so many labels to read and so much contradictory information out there.   Sometimes you just need to get dinner on the table and don't have time to "research" what you are eating.

My family and I came up with our top ten tips to help you get started.  Pick one or all ten, either way it's a great start!

Peanut Butter Ball Cookies

Today I am sharing a super easy, healthy recipe that my whole family loves!  The given name is No Bake Energy Bites found at Gimme Some Oven, but my girls call them Peanut Butter Ball Cookies.  These are great because you can throw in whatever you have on-hand or whatever you think will taste good.  Today I will share with you how we usually make them.


I actually doubled my recipe this past time, because everyone loves them so much.

Ingredients (single batch- makes 20-25 one inch balls):

Pizza made with Cauliflower Crust

This is going to be a quick blog post, but this recipe was just too good NOT to share it right away!  The pizza crust was made with cauliflower.  YES, cauliflower!  To get the whole recipe go to this great little blog I recently found called Eating Bird Food.
This crust is a little more delicate than your normal pizza dough so keep your toppings light.  There is already cheese in the crust so you can go easy on the topping cheese.  We even overdid it a little with ours. Tonight I just used whatever I had on-hand so I sautéed some organic peppers (organic since these are on the dirty list, click the link to get the dirty dozen and clean fifteen lists).
Since this pizza will be broiled after adding the toppings you want to make sure your toppings are already cooked how you like them before adding them to your crust.
Word to the wise, if you aren't using a Pampered Chef Pizza Stone, really oil that pan because this crust will stick!
But it was completely delicious!  I liked it MORE than the usual pizza dough we have been using!  The whole family loved it and asked for more.  Some have said that they can taste the cauliflower in the crust though they still like it, but my husband and I could not actually taste it.  (The way our girls ate it, I'm pretty sure they couldn't taste any cauliflower either!)

Paleo Brownies! No Flour!

We've been researching wheat, whole wheat, and flours lately.  It's one of those "in moderation it's fine"  things. . . except it's in everything you eat!  Just like high fructose corn syrup!  

I am not interested in fad diets.  I do not believe I need to give up all gluten because we do not have an actual allergy to it.  However, I do believe in eating REAL food.  I believe in organic food.  I don't want to eat anything that has been processed or tampered with.  Labels can be so tricky.  So many people think because something is labeled ENRICHED that means it must be healthy since they are adding vitamins and minerals.  It is actually the opposite.  Enriched means that while it was being processed (heavily processed at that) nutrients were taken out and they are tampering with the product to attempt to add those nutrients back in.  But you only end up with a heavily processed product that is not good for you.  

Since this is meant to be a fun recipe post, if you are more interested in the topic here is a nice little site for you to check out. 

And now, the result of my late night flour research. . . flourless,  PALEO BROWNIES!! YUM!

Upcycled Patio Garden

We searched Pinterest for a garden solution.  I did not inherit my mother's green thumb, we have a tiny patio, a large "dig-happy" golden retriever, and a budget of as close to nothing as we could get.  According to Pinterest, a raised garden would take care of the tiny patio problem and maybe a portion of my lack of green thumb problem.

Recipe Success! Almond Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

  These cookies were delicious!  The whole family loved them and there aren't many foods I can put organic flaxseed in that fools our girls! This first time around I used more unbleached all purpose flour in place of the whole-wheat flour and regular sugar in place of the raw sugar.  (Clean eating is a PROCESS!)  Next time I will follow the recipe completely because they are that delicious, I'm willing to try.

Chocolate Milk Solution

We could not figure out the best way to completely wean Hammie.  We were down to nursing only one time a day, but she did not like cow's milk.  We tried whole milk, 2%, and then we tried adding Nestle's Chocolate syrup (no high fructose corn syrup).  She didn't like anything.  So out of desperation I bought a gallon of chocolate milk. . . with high fructose corn syrup and all.  It worked!  She was completely weaned and she was happy.  We as parents were not happy.

We spent years eliminating high fructose corn syrup from our diets, (We are not of those that think it's fine in moderation. . . good luck with moderation when it's in everything you eat!)  and we were not okay with giving it to our 19 month old every morning.  We could buy organic I thought, but then we run into the problem of ultra-pasteurization.  If you want to read about ultra-pasteurizing This Website has a good article on what exactly it is.  Is ultra-pasteurizing really a problem?  We're not sure, but for US, we don't want to be eating or drinking anything that has gone through a process that can actually change its taste, texture, and proteins.  Our rule is that if it gives it a super long shelf life we probably don't want it in our bodies.

We asked around without much success.  Was there a chocolate milk on this Earth that we could give our daughter without worry?  What should you do when it doubt?  ASK YOUR MOTHER.  I texted my mom and she texted back, Oberweis.  OBERWEIS, DUH!  I'm not sure why it never crossed our minds, maybe because we have to leave our small town to even find it!

Pizza Night!

It's true.  We have a lot of pizza nights.  Lately it's been once or twice a week!  Here are a few reasons why we have been having a lot of pizza nights:

1)  It costs MAYBE $4.10 per pizza.  Depending on which frozen pizza you buy at the store this is either barely more than you spend or possibly LESS than you spend for a frozen pizza!  MINUS all of those nasty chemicals!