Conscious Inner Transformation

Not everyone takes to transformation as quickly as others.  Making the transition from eating unhealthy foods that are prevalent in today’s western world to a diet based on nutritional excellence is not always readily digested by everyone. It can be hard to change years of conditioning, even if one knows why one wants to change.

In his book Eat for Health, Dr Fuhrman addresses this by breaking the process of eating healthily into four stages, leading readers into a world of healthful food, which I think is a good idea.

As an ex-vegetarian returning to a much more highly nutritious way of eating than my recent years, I’ve jumped in at the last stage with both feet, which works for me.  However, my boys (husband and son) are much more reluctant to give up what they know and love in exchange for what will give them more vitality in the long run.  Fair enough.

I’ve decided that rather than cook two menus at every meal, I will basically eat as per Dr Fuhrman’s suggestions for the most part, while giving these as side dishes or the vegetable portion of a ‘normal’ meal to my boys.  I’m hoping that with time, their taste buds will become accustomed to the more natural and nutrient-dense foods (with or without meat) and that this will be accompanied by a gradual choice on their own part to eat these by preference.  One can live in hope, while at the same time surrendering to the process and dealing with each meal at a time!

RESULTS SO FAR

Fresh fruit salad

Both boys (I’ll use this term in future as its quicker to type than “husband and son”) enjoy a fresh fruit platter with low fat Jalna berry yogurt in the middle as a ‘dipping sauce’.   This has become a regular weekend breakfast (often replacing bacon sandwiches).  Its a bit time consuming to cut up the fruit, so its not something I do during the week as I generally have to be at work around 7.30am, with the boys leaving for work/school by 8am.

Smoothies

My husband’s not really a smoothie person, but my son loves them.  I’ve often made him a banana smoothie with full fat milk, yogurt and bananas.  As this is now a fairly regular choice and he’s not that keen on soy milk, I’m buying low fat milk instead.

I’m also trying out various fruits in the smoothie base and apart from blueberries (which I’m learning to like as well because they’re so good for you), he enjoys these.

Favourites:  Banana/mango/raspberry  (anything with banana or mango really)

I tried the Chocolate Smoothie from Eat for Health and I’ll substitute some raspberries for some of the blueberries next time I make it.

Dr Fuhrman’s Famous Anti Cancer Soup

I like this one, although I think I preferred the soup as it looked before I whizzed the greens and cashews into it.  Next time I will whiz less and see how it looks.

We had this tonight.  I cooked the boys lamb, rosemary and garlic gluten free sausages with basmati rice with the Soup on top of the rice.  As per the recipe, I didn’t add extra salt or stock cubes and although both boys ate it, my husband said it was bland on bland, so next time I may add a bit of veggie stock.

I think his taste buds are just shot from over-stimulation with chilli and salt, and he will probably have a way to go before (if ever) he likes/loves the recipes as they are laid out in the book.  But, so long as they’re eating their veggies, I’m happy.  Even if we add extra seasoning to start with, we’re one step in the right direction – the direction being inner health and vitality.

As I’ve said before, making a sudden transition could tip them right over the edge and walk away back to the meat and starch diet, so I’m prepared to go at a pace that works for them, as long as we’re quietly moving towards a better diet.

Desserts

Again, my husband’s not really a dessert person, so I’ve been quite happy to experiment with these myself and with my son!

Basically all the desserts we’ve chosen have been eaten with gusto, including Frozen Banana Fluff, Jenna’s Peach Freeze and Mixed Berry Freeze.  Apart from the crunchy taste of the added LSA mix (in place of flax seeds) which my son wasn’t that keen on, we both love the blended frozen fruit and I can see this continuing.  Yay!

This afternoon, I made a batch of Yummy Banana-Oat Bars. Instead of adding date sugar, I added just under a tablespoon of Xylitol (a natural sweetener), but the other ingredients were as per the recipe.  I rather like them.  My husband said they taste like they’d be healthy for you!  But he still ate the bar.  My son thought it was a bit boring.  He’s more used to homemade muesli bars with a high fat and sugar content, so it will take a bit of getting used to.  I melted some cooking chocolate and spread that on top of the squares and gave him one, which he ate readily and said he’d be happy to have one in his school lunch box.

That’s the lot so far.  Future recipes and their adaptations and inclusions will be written up in another post!