Food choices
Last week I listened to the recent episode by Ladies We Need To Talk about clean eating. In this episode they talk how social media and fad diets tell us that “vegan, paleo, raw, protein shakes, juice cleanses, gluten-free, dairy-free, chia seeds… are the types of foods we should be putting into our bodies.” And that these “diets offer the promise of perfect health and the perfect body… but for some they tip over into unhealthy obsession.” Considering that sometimes our breakfast is homemade peanut butter, sliced banana and hemp seeds on homemade sourdough bread, this made me reflect.
As some of you know, we eat mainly homemade foods that we make from scratch. For example I make granola because I find the store-bought ones are too sugary for my taste. Six years ago I started baking sourdough breads. And during the pandemic we started making so many other things like peanut butter, yoghurt, various pickles, confit garlic, vegetable stock, butter, bagels, and ice cream, to name a few.
One of the reasons for my interest in homemade foods is because I want to provide healthy foods for a growing child as well feeling better in my own body. But listening to that podcast episode and knowing Lachlan and I have tendencies to sometimes become obsessive, we reflected on our habits around food choices.
Our food philosophy involves choosing whole foods and limiting highly processed foods. That means that a large portion of our food comes from vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains that have undergone minimal processing, which we cook at home. But we also eat out, and on road trips will have liquorice bullets and iced coffees/chocolates.
I think the lesson I’m taking from this is one that I keep rediscovering: moderation and balance are always better than extremes. I also have written previously about playing the long game. So I choose to keep both my banana peanut butter hemp seeds sourdough and my chocolate bullets.
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Here are this week’s recipe suggestions for you to try:
Coconut Cajun tofu bowls — this dish is so full of colour and flavour.
Eggplant parmigiana — this is a simpler take on eggplant parmigiana that we made at least twice because we like it so much.
Whole orange cake — I did this cake as part of a cooking session by Open Table with the objective to reduce food waste and liked it enough that it is now on regular rotation.
Banana pancakes — four ingredients only.
Beetroot and wheat berry salad with pickled apples and pecans — this is not a quick recipe. More of a weekend recipe but well worth the effort and a good one to use both your beetroot and beetroot greens.
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Our meal plan from last week can be found at: https://foodfamily.app/public/meal_plans/c878d241-62f3-4d4d-a594-382b7bc0e786
Once again, please let us know if you make any of these recipes, how you found them, what you changed, or just drop us an email to say hi.
Thanks and see you next time,
Elle, Lachlan, M, Ginger, and Edward