At first, I didn't think it would be that much of a challenge since we do a lot of cooking at home and don't buy a whole lot of packaged foods. So I read their definition of "unprocessed" and signed up. Basically, if you can make it in your own kitchen with whole food, readily available ingredients, then it's unprocessed. (Not that you have to make it yourself, but the fact that you could). With that being said, we are allowing some exceptions.
1. Milk. Regular pasteurized milk and milk products. I don't buy into his organic, grass fed, raw milk thinking. I'm happy for him that he has that choice, but it's not going to happen in our house!
2. Sugar. But, I do plan on reducing sugar as much as possible, and substituting honey or sorghum syrup where I can. But there are some things that just really have to have the sugar.
3. White flour. But, I plan to be at least 75% whole wheat flour.
4. Rice and other grains. I'm pushing for as unprocessed as possible, but I'm not going to be super picky.
5. Chocolate. I'm avoiding all sweetened chocolate, but cocoa is going to be ok.
Then I started thinking about things I was going to have to fully give up.
1. My beloved Starbucks. It's fall, which means my two favorites are on the menu again-Pumpkin Spice Latte and Salted Caramel Mocha. I know I could make my own PSL-I've seen the pins on Pinterest. But, it's not the same. I've tried it and was horribly disappointed. On the bright side, I'll be saving $5 a day!
2. Cheerios. It's my favorite cereal-just the plain Cheerios. I eat breakfast every morning and I usually try to switch things up and rotate in some oatmeal or leftover french toast or muffins from the weekend, but it looks like the month of October is going to be cereal free.
3. Kraft Mac and Cheese. Yes, the powdered cheese-ish stuff. It's one of my guilty pleasures, especially with some hot dogs added in. I know I could buy some all natural version of it, but it wouldn't be the same without all the artificial dyes and flavors.
4. Caramel Machiatto Coffee Mate-I guess I will have to switch to the Natural Bliss line again. Although, I'm not 100% sure what they mean by "Natural Flavors" listed in the ingredients. For my sanity, we're going to say the natural bliss line counts.
5. Green Box Pasta. That's not the actual name of it. It's one of the Pasta Roni varieties. I think it's angel hair pasta with herbs-but it comes in a green box, so we just call it green box pasta. Whatever it is, it's delicious. I think the kids may be more disappointed than me on this one though.
I'm sure I'll stumble across more processed foods throughout the month that I won't want to give up, but that's what makes it a challenge, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment