Planning To Cook At Home

Cooking at home needs a little  planning now that you made the decision to change from eating out to making homemade meals for the benefit of your and your family’s health.Making changes in lifestyle can be daunting and take time until they too become a habit. Losing interest, anxieties of not succeeding and impatience of not getting there quickly, is quite normal, but does not have to be.

What are the steps that make a move into a new routine more effortlessly?

First, take a sweep through refrigerator and pantry. Finding a lot of prepared foods may present  the dilemma of what to do with them. Incorporated into healthy foods by adding organic, fresh vegetables or complex carbohydrates may be the way to go. Continue to use as much of the foods as you can without getting into a financial deficit or, preferably, discard them. Most do not have nutritional value anyway. Money spent was for packaging. Keep frozen vegetables since they are second best to fresh ones, if organic.

Once fridge and pantry are empty, replenish with whole foods one week at a time.

Concentrate on eating more vegetables making sure that there is enough of protein, fat and complex carbohydrates as well. Animal proteins are important to an omnivore, but remember, vegetables and carbohydrates contain protein as well. If there is variety, falling short on protein will not happen. Shop once a week at the farmers’ market for fresh, organic produce in season. Since they are fresh, they will keep well all week until gone.

At farmers’ markets grass-fed animal products like meats and eggs are available as well. Remember, it is not necessary to eat large portions of meat. A little goes a long way, as it is done in Chinese cuisine, meat is more or less a flavoring in the midst of very nutritious vegetables, herbs and spices.

If there is no farmers’ market, shop where food with most food value is available, is fresh, organic and naturally raised. Nowadays many super markets stock real and wholesome foods. Many towns and cities have health food stores where much of those foods you want to concentrate on are available.

Read labels. Ingredient lists should be short and easily understood by a person without a chemistry degree. Prepare bigger quantities of beans and grains like rice and quinoa for keeping in the fridge or freezer until ready for use. Cooking these does not take much time. They only need to be watched until done, at the most for one hour. Keep green herbs and a variety of spices on hand for additional nutrition and flavoring. Eventually, cooking at home will be a creative, meditative process you cannot do without. Just like everything else, it needs practice.

Keep tuned for more information on eating at home and what to cook.