Presenting Spelt

I have been wanting to make these Spelt Pumpkin Muffins for quite a while, but wasn’t sure about using an “alternative” flour.  A friend made them a couple months ago and brought me a few – they were delicious!  I finally found spelt flour at a local store, so decided to give it a whirl.  When I told my daughter two days ago that I was going to make her some pumpkin muffins, she turned her nose up, stuck her tongue out, and gave me a super dramatic “blech!”  Nice.  But I knew she’d like the taste, just as she had before, she’s just so darn stubborn about eating anything that I make.

I threw together the ingredients quickly while my daughter was downstairs playing.  A couple years ago, my mother-in-law sent us a snowflake cookie baking pan and a snowman mini-loaf pan, so I decided to break these out.  Yes, I’m aware Thanksgiving is the next holiday, but I was determined to make these “muffins” in a way that my daughter would like.   When she came back upstairs, I was just pulling the snowflake cookies out of the oven and putting the snowman loaves in.  She was so excited!  Then she saw the mixing bowl, the remnants of the batter, and said, “Ummm, there’s cinna-ninna-ninna-mon in that!”  (Although I know it’s not true, she contends that she does not like cinnamon.  And, for the record, she can pronounce the word correctly, we just have fun with it.)  I told her there was no cinnamon in the cookies (little white lies are perfectly okay), that the recipe called for it, but I specifically left it out so she’d like them, and that what she was seeing was just ginger.  She clapped and screamed, “Yum, gingerbread!”  (Insert evil laugh here.)  And, of course, she thought the cookies were super yummy!  So yummy that we made those Wednesday afternoon, and as of this morning, Friday, they are gone!  My husband and son happened to love them too, and there is now more pumpkin puree thawing so I can whip up another batch.

So, moral of this story is: It’s really all in the presentation.  It’s so much easier to get my daughter to try better-for-you food when it’s presented to her on a Hello Kitty plate (veggie burger homemade Happy Meal), in a Cinderella cup with a lid and slinky straw (yummy smoothies), or in the form of snowflake cookies and snowman muffins.

And I just have to mention…  My daughter’s kindergarten class made pumpkin cranberry bread yesterday at school.  They made it in mini loaf tins and decorated a recipe sheet to bring home.  I loved that they all participated and were able to do something so hands-on at school, and taste the fruits of their labor.  But, I didn’t love that the recipe included two full cups of sugar for two loaves of bread.  When we got home, I sliced a piece of the bread for my sweet Baby Girl to try.  She took one bite, handed it back to me, and asked for one of the muffins I had made.  I cannot convey to you how happy this made me!  (I think I’ll send in a spelt pumpkin muffin to the teacher next week, what do you think?)

Processed Defined

A friend asked the other day what the actual definition is of “processed food.”  I had the same question when I started on my journey to rid my home of it.  I still don’t have a definitive answer to that question, as I think it depends at least somewhat on what your ultimate goal is when it comes to processed food.  If you want to eat the most real, most fresh, most whole food possible for every meal, every day, move to a big farm, buy some cattle and chickens, a lot of seeds, and good luck.  That doesn’t work for me; I try to eat as minimally processed as possible, with a little convenience thrown in here and there. 

According to livestrong.com, “The United States Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, Section 201, Chapter II, (gg) defines processed food as "any food other than a raw agricultural commodity and includes any raw agricultural commodity that has been subject to processing, such as canning, cooking, freezing, dehydration, or milling."“  I tried finding this definition myself on the FDA website, but had no such luck – surprise surprise, it’s very difficult to find what you’re looking for on that website!

According to the definition above, it’s virtually impossible to eat no processed food whatsoever, unless everything you eat is plucked from your backyard and eaten raw. I know raw is best when it comes to veggies, but sometimes I just like a nice piping hot bowl of vegetable soup.

The 100 Days pledge allows for store-bought items with less than five ingredients.  I like this.  It allows for some convenience, but with minimal additives.  However, even if there are less than five ingredients, if I can’t pronounce one of them, I’m not buying it!

I think the easiest rule of thumb to follow is to make everything that you can from scratch.  If you need to buy something premade or packaged, just read the ingredients.  If you don’t know what something is, don’t buy it.  It can be a bit overwhelming at first, reading all those labels, but it gets easier.  Once you get the hang of it, your trips to the grocery store take much less time (and cost less money) – you’ll find that you stick mainly to the perimeter of the store, with just a couple of exceptions (olive oil, frozen veggies every now and then).  Forewarning, checkout can take a lot longer, with the cashier having to type in all the produce codes; I am not the favorite customer at my regular grocery store!

I’d love to hear some of the surprises – positive or negative – that you’ve encountered while reading ingredient labels.  Please share in the comments.

Sugar – My Own Very Unscientific Study

I’ve been doing a pretty good job of feeding my family real, whole, clean food for almost a year now.  There are days I’m too busy to cook, weeks we have so much going on that I fall off the wagon a bit, but for the most part, we’ve been eating clean since January.  Some of the first positive effects we noticed were weight loss (my husband and I both), just feeling better in general, improvement in our health (our daughter’s asthma is all but gone), and our daughter’s behavior improved. 

But yesterday was Halloween.

This post could have just ended there; the previous sentence should be self explanatory.

You see, when you change your eating habits to eat clean, you don’t consume nearly as much sugar.  Sugar – in any of its refined, un-natural forms – is bad bad bad!  (Throw in some artificial food coloring, and you have a potential recipe for disaster!) 

The past few months have been extremely busy for me, my husband, and yes, for our five-year-old daughter too.  I had no idea kindergarten would be so busy!  So I have relied on takeout a few times (I try to keep it healthy) and just haven’t been putting forth as much effort with our meals.  During these past few months, Rapunzel has been having these crazy tantrums.  She had them when she was younger, but basically grew out of them – or so we thought. 

We’ve made so many excuses for Rapunzel’s behavior – full school days with no naps; coming down with a cold; adjusting to having a baby brother.  The hubs and I have both suspected sugar, knowing it most likely had at least some effect.  When we’ve gone out of town to visit family, there seems to be a tantrum the morning we get ready to come home; if it’s a longer trip (longer than a weekend), there’s a couple to deal with while we’re visiting.  You know how grandparents are – Rapunzel gets treats like froyo with 12 toppings on it – and I’m okay with that; I don’t want to deprive my daughter or her grandparents.  I just brace myself for what I have learned will surely follow.

Today’s tantrum was a doozie!  It was the longest one, clocking in at about 38 minutes.  Since there is already a hole in her bedroom wall where the doorknob hits (you guessed it, from a previous tantrum), there was no damage to anything, except maybe my sanity, and Rapunzel’s.  The tantrums always involve a lot of crying, screaming, gasping for air, “you’re the meanest mommy ever,” hitting, kicking…  You get the idea.  I gently restrain her so she can’t hurt herself, and once she’s worn completely out, she just wants to hug and snuggle. 

As a mom, this story is a hard one for me to tell.  It’s embarrassing.  If I’m a good mom, my daughter should just simply behave, right?  But I do think I’m a good mom.  I usually walk away from these tantrums so frustrated, confused, and worn out.  I feel bad for my little girl, my baby, that she can’t find a way to control her anger better.  I get angry at myself for letting her have two pieces of candy on Halloween night.  And I get angry at the teacher that brought in cookies, icing, chocolate chips, and candy corn for the kids to make jack-o-lantern cookies yesterday without a single word to the parents. 

After improved behavior over the past couple of weeks (I’ve gotten back on the wagon with clean eating, no takeout, etc), today’s tantrum on the day after Halloween, the “holiday” that revolves around sugary treats, is my proof that sugar is my daughter’s worst enemy.  Now to make her five-year-old brain that thinks she has two stomachs – one for food and one for candy – understand that!