Eating Healthy

Eating healthy is so subjective. Healthful eating is often defined as counting calories, cutting out fat, drinking a diet soda instead of regular, eating one of those cute 100 calorie packs of your favorite snack, or getting the grilled chicken sandwich from a local restaurant's "light" menu. My weekly menus got me thinking about how how healthy my food really is.

What made me think of this? Well, for starters, every dinner I make contains olive oil, or butter, or - Heaven forbid - real sour cream (ahhhhh!). I often wonder if it's the right way to go. And you know what? After second- and third- and fourth- and fifth-guessing my self, I think it is. I think about our grandparents, and great grandparents. Never in a million years would I have found low fat sour cream in my granny's refrigerator. She was the kind of woman who had a little sour cream and a little butter and a little red meat. She drank one Manhattan almost every night. (Do you see a pattern?) She lived to be almost 90 and was healthy and self-sufficient for the first 85 years of her life. I think there's something to be said about that. 

When I really think about it, this is how past generations differed from ours:

- they didn't have the option of adding ridiculous junk food to an already gross meal for an extra 99 cents

- their coffee didn't contain 5 pumps of vanilla or gingerbread or hazelnut, and whipped cream

- they ate the majority of their meals from home

This week would've been my Granny's 94th birthday. She taught me what good food was. She showed me that orange juice can come from a hand-picked orange off the tree in the backyard, and that dinner should have a veggie. I think it's important to honor our past generations' reverence to food. Good food does more than fill your tummy for a short period of time; it nourishes us - body and mind. 

Enough with the mushy stuff...

I will try to frequently give small tidbits that pay tribute to real food, and not the convenience we've all grown accustomed to. I'll try to make these tidbits simple and time-friendly. After all, half the reason we reach for the frozen dinner is because there aren't enough hours in the day (true story).

So here's a tip for today: 

Next time you want tacos (or another Mexican dish that calls for a packet of taco seasoning), make your own. All you need is: chili powder, chili pepper flakes, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. It'll take a minute to shake a few containers instead of 10 seconds to open a packet, but you'll be saving yourself tons of sodium and other yuckies.

If you wanna be extra adventurous (and have 5 more minutes) omit the onion and garlic powder and chop your own fresh. After you cry from the onion, you'll cry tears of joy because your dinner tastes so much better. 

Adios, mis amgios y familia