Project 857- May 24

This Saturday post is brought to you by...

"Jessica went and saw the movie Fed Up about the childhood obesity epidemic and got freaked out and started reading labels like a hawk and decided to make some changes in how her family eats because we will not be part of that statistic."

If you haven't seen the movie, here is the jist of it- sugar is the devil.

And I don't mean the occasional birthday cake or cookie... this movie is about the hidden sugar in EVERYTHING - spaghetti sauce, crackers, "healthy" snacks, etc.

So I read some labels when I got home.

Austin's "healthy whole grain high fiber" breakfast cookies he had each morning?

14 GRAMS OF SUGAR PER COOKIE.

Oh my dear lord!

That is just not necessary. He doesn't need that amount of sugar at breakfast.

So I went grocery shopping like I normally do on Saturdays and I was on a mission to bump up the whole foods we eat, and make a better breakfast option for Austin.

Half my cart was produce... Change is good and I felt like I was off to a good start!

So I got home, and broke out my new BFF- the blender- and attempted to make Austin a breakfast juice.

Beet, carrot, orange, blueberries.

The verdict?

Eh. Too much beet. The beet was HUGE and I only used half and it was still too much. Austin took a few sips and that was it, and it was even too pungent for Neal and I... and I love beets. So lesson learned on that one. Beware of TMB- Too Much Beet.

For my next trick I made my breakfast banana muffins, but bumped up the health factor.

Whole wheat flour, ground flax seed, and half the amount of sugar the recipe called for:

I made a double batch and froze them... and got 5 weeks of breakfast for Austin! He eats in the car, so we have to do something easily transportable.

The verdict?

Awesome. You can't tell there is half the sugar, or the whole wheat flour, and Austin asks for more than one!

Since I was on a roll... I figured, why not make homemade almond butter too?

Toasted the almonds, blended them up...

The verdict?

Eh... not so much. It was messy, took forever to blend smooth, and didn't taste all that great plain. I added it to smoothies and that was good, but to eat just the almond butter? Bleh.

So that was the majority of my Saturday.

Slave to my kitchen.

But it's because that movie did freak me out a bit.... I'm not perfect and I try my best to feed my kid healthy food, as do all Mom's, but being made aware of what is actually in some of things I thought were "healthy" was really humbling. I could do better. I could make more of an effort and give him a better foundation for a healthy life.

I just hope my efforts will pay off for him in the long run.

Don't worry, we did have some fun that day too... that evening we went to a BBQ at our friend's house. Austin had fun being a crazy monkey and charming baby Guiliana!