Thursday, July 23, 2009

No time to cook - no problem



If I had a dime for each time a friend said to me, “sure the way you eat is more healthy, but I don’t have time to cook like you do” I would be a very wealthy woman. It is frustrating for me to watch the people I care about do things that I believe are harmful to their health. If I could convince one person to eat a more healthy diet I would feel as though I had been successful in life. I have spent so much time reading about health and nutrition that I truly believe that the consumption of the Standard American Diet (SAD ... how appropriate) is harming this country one meal at a time.

For those of you that think I cook every meal, everyday that is absolutely not true. Yes, I do cook most days, but I don’t cook all our food fresh everyday. I use my freezer and refrigerator as repositories for quick items I can toss together and have a fast but healthy meal when I don’t have the time or inclination to cook. I always intentionally make leftovers so that I don’t have to cook every meal, every day.

Yesterday I spent a large part of the day out of the house. We went to cooking class so there was no dinner in our house. Dinner leftovers are my favorite next day lunch. This morning I had to scramble to find lunch for my precious husband before he ran out the door to work. My freezer and refrigerator inventory came to rescue, and quite beautifully I might add.

Lunch today was a whole wheat pita (from the freezer), toasted to defrost it and packed in paper towel while still warm to absorb the moisture developed from the toaster. I also added a few frozen falafel to be reheated in the microwave at lunchtime. A little lettuce, salsa fresca from yesterday, and lemon chia seed dressing and we had healthy and tasty pita pockets for lunch. An apple and peanut butter for dessert and all was right with the world, in less than 5 minutes.

Why have I posted this entry you ask? What I want everyone to realize is that you don’t have to cook constantly to have healthy meals everyday. When I cook I always make more food than we will consume in that meal. Dinner leftovers become lunch (or sometimes breakfast) the next day. If we aren’t eating leftovers for breakfast there is usually a smoothie in the blender (love that Vitamix) with a toasted Ezekiel English muffin with peanut butter and banana. As you can see I really only cook dinner each day. If you also have a pressure cooker making dinner doesn’t take much time either. I hope this has given you something to think and ideas about how to incorporate more healthy meals into your family’s diet.

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