Laura Lawrence- Northern Michigan Homesteader
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Let’s Get To It!
How to Become a Food Prood
Topic #3 - Real Foods for Real Health
So your on a path to remove the bad stuff like the previous topics we’ve covered MSG & HFCS yay for you! Maybe even those pesky food dyes that I’ve read a lot on that alters people’s attitudes. Another just not cool ingredient that the big companies use that’s complexly useless.
Now your cupboards are empty and so are your stomachs! Now what? We need to train the brain to rethink what “Real Food” is.
Your use to things in boxes, using the microwave and not really having to think about what’s for dinner.
Were overloaded with decisions all the time so it’s been really nice to have those decisions already thought out for you. Hamburger helper right? All you gotta do is thaw some meat , brown and throw in the boxed ingredients. So let’s start there.
Hamburger Helper Beef Pasta – Let’s look at the ingredients: (Take from their website)
PRODUCT INGREDIENTS
Enriched Pasta (wheat flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), Corn Starch, Salt, Wheat Flour. Contains 2% or less of: Modified Whey, Onion Powder, Color (caramel color, annatto extract), Maltodextrin, Potassium Chloride, Hydrolyzed Corn, Soy, and Wheat Protein, Yeast Extract, Natural And Artificial Flavor, Vegetable Oil (canola, soybean, and/or sunflower oil), Spice, Monoglycerides, Sugar, Safflower Oil, Silicon Dioxide (anticaking agent).
That’s a lot of ingredients and we won’t dive into what they each mean but again our thought process needs to be “We do NOT need to have all these extra ingredients to bog down our bodies” Let’s cook with WHOLE FOODS, REAL FOODs!
Let’s recreate this “Dinner” with real foods.
Make it simple at first and then learn to experiment with flavors, different cheeses, etc.
Brown up your choice of meat and drain if necessary. While it’s browning add in chopped onion and garlic. If you end up buying or raising ground pork, beef, etc you’ll start to learn that organic, grass fed, pasture raised meat the FAT is actually healthy for you. Side note there.
Season your meat with: Real salt, pepper, paprika, Italian. If you have fresh herbs like parsley chop them up and add in here. Save some to sprinkle on top at the end for the beautiful pop of fancy color.
Cook your choice of noodles. There are lots of great choices for organic and or gluten free noodles that I enjoy.
To create the sauce: Let’s make it a cheesy sauce, because I honestly can’t tell what if they use cheese or not because its’ a bunch of crazy words.
HOW: In a pan melt 4 tablespoons of butter and sauté garlic (or skip the garlic), add in 2 tablespoons of flour to create a paste. Add in 1.5 cups of milk and whisk, bring to a boil, and turn off or down to a simmer. Once thickened add in 1 to 2 cups of your choice of cheese and stir.
Mix together the meat, noodles and sauce! Boom!!
You could also add in any vegetable like broccoli or corn to make a One Pan Wonder as I like to call them. Or use a veggie as a side dish or a side salad.
Look there people you did it! And you and your family did not have to consume Anti Caking Agents, Highly processed Oils, Sugar, Potassium Chloride, Corn or Soy , Modified Ingredients, GMO Ingredient’s and the list goes on and on!!
You can absolutely do this! It really wasn’t much harder to create a REAL FOOD Dinner!
--------------------One Step at A Time!
---------------------------One Boxed Meal at a Time!
Your body will thank you for it, your family will thank you for it. Your budget will thank you for it!
This is just the beginning of a great journey but you’ll be better off for it. Now go look at what you typically make and see if you can recreate that meal using WHOLE FOODS!
Something I"m Loving to Help in the Kitchen:
Great Job!! I’ll see you soon with the next step!
Laura Lawrence – Freedom in Food Advocate!
Northern Michigan Homesteader
Let's Get To It! Topic #3 Real Foods for Real Health
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Let’s Get To It! Topic #2 HFCS
Let's Get To It! Topic #1 MSG
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