The Weekly Challenge #1

Grocery shopping is a test of patience for me.  Usually I have 3 kids with me.  The two boys playing some sort of kill each other game and flopping on the ground in front of other people and their carts.  Paige is almost to the age that she is extremely helpful by being able to grab items for me.  She is just starting to remember how to read and compare unit prices.  Not only do I have to manage the 3 kids, but I am a devoted label reader.  We, as a family, have decided to try to stay away from high fructose corn syrup and lower the amount of sodium ingested.  Sounds easy right?  Well, it's not, especially when you are on a budget.  We have approximately $125 a week to feed five people 3 fantastic meals and at least one snack a day.

This week was a success.  I only had to take the boys, and they didn't flop in front of a cart, and the total for week was $102 (including TP and dishwasher soap)!  The plan:

• Oatmeal with frozen blueberries for breakfast
• Freshly ground almond butter on 100% whole wheat bread, apples or grapes, and carrots for lunch
• Apples, grapes, carrots, or graham crackers for snack
• Dinner plans include one meatless night, one semi-meatless (depending on how you classify eggs), two fish, and 2 chicken dinners.  Each dinner has salad and a veggie side.  
• One planned sweet treat - strawberry, lime bars

As you can already tell, I have decided to take on a lot of preparation myself.  I'm hoping that if I devote one day to some preparation each week, having to prepare 21 meals won't see so overwhelming.  I'm planning on making a batch of black beans in the crock pot, grind almonds into almond butter, and making our own sweet treat.  Doesn't sound so bad written out on the page, but keep in mind this is also on top of endless laundry, piles of dishes, 3 bathrooms to be cleaned, floors to be swept and mopped, trying to get ahead for the next semester of nursing school and so on and so on.

Why did we decide to make such a drastic change in the way we were eating?  Honestly, I'm scared of juvenile diabetes.  I want our kids to be fantastically healthy now, so they can maintain or be even healthy adults.  There have been studies that have linked the obesity epidemic in America to the high levels of high fructose corn syrup and the highly processed food so desired by the majority of the American public.  Watch Food, Inc (available on Netflix instant queue)!  It will definitely make an impact on the choices you put on the plates of your family.  Ok, I'm getting off my soap box for the evening!  I think we might play a rousing game of charades.