If I had to sum up the past 11 years of my personal real food journey, I’d say I have gone from poptarts to psycho to chill. No one liked the psycho phase – not even me. I coped by drinking Pepsi. Do not ask me to make sense of this. Read the details here, if you dare.
Now, I’d like to spend a few minutes answering a much requested question as of late:
“What are your current real food priorities?”
Now that I’ve been doing the real food thing for 11 years – if I had to make a list of the foods I feel are most important to buy and put them in order of highest priority down to lowest, what would that look like? Also, where does organic fall in this list? What about raw? How about grass fed? What about hormones? How about margarine? Oh, c’mon. Everyone knows how I feel about margarine.
(Just in case: DON’T EAT MARGARINE EVER, EVER IN YOUR LIFE, EVER.)
The past few weeks, I have spent quite a bit of time pondering my current food priorities, which no doubt, may look different than yours. If you’ve been reading here for years, you’ve watched my priorities change along with the seasons in my life (psycho to chill ~ little boys to teenage boys ~ small budget to huge budget). I look forward to hearing about your priorities too! For now, here are mine:
1. Fruits and Vegetables
You know I can’t say enough about eating many, many fruits and vegetables every day. I do buy some of them organic if they are available and within my budget – but mostly – I just buy them. Organic is best, absolutely. But I found that I was not buying and eating enough when I was focused on only buying organic produce. I live in too small a town to have enough organic options, plus the cost is prohibitive for my family. We go through pounds and pounds of produce every week. I spend at least $100-$150 on fruits and vegetables alone – every week. I would triple that number if I bought exclusively organic. I can’t, so I don’t.
Organic or not, a big variety of fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables is definitely my highest grocery priority.
2. Healthy Fats
I considered making this my #1 priority, simply because switching to real-food fats is what I always advise as one of the easiest healthy changes a person can make. But seeing as I eat more veggies than butter every day (shocking, I know) – I went ahead with fats as number 2.
I see fats as super important in our diet – and I believe eating the good kind is crucial. Our bodies struggle to digest and utilize hydrogenated oils and chemically created oils. It’s best to avoid them altogether.
On the other hand, coconut oil is a health food rock-star. Real butter is recognized by our bodies and can be very nourishing. Palm shortening is easily digested and a wonderful alternative to crisco. Olive oil is wonderful (but best at low temps) – great for salad dressings.
If you change nothing else about how you eat and feed your family – add more fruits and vegetables and switch bad fats for good ones. I can’t say enough about these two priorities. Our bodies need nourishment and in my opinion (based on research and real life) – fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats are some of the best foods that pack a nourishing punch.
3. Good Meat and Eggs
I make this a high priority mainly because we go through quite a bit of meat and eggs at our house. Our sons are athletic and active – they need a lot of good protein beyond beans and nuts!
We are blessed to have access to wonderful farm-fresh meats and eggs (at reasonable prices) where I live. I love that my chicken, beef, lamb, and eggs come from animals who are fed well and allowed to roam free. This is important enough to me that if we ever moved to another location, I would search out good meat and egg sources. Buying regular ol’ meat and eggs from the store would be tough for me now that we’ve been so spoiled with the good stuff. I can taste a huge difference! (But I still say that if store-bought is your only option, you never need to fret. God is bigger than a free-range chicken. Amen?)
4. Whole Grains
Number 4-5-6 could probably be interchanged with one another, but here is where they ultimately landed.
We’ve cut way back on grains – making fruits, veggies, and meat the main focus of our meals. But I still make whole grains a priority because they help stretch our food budget. They also help keep my life in the kitchen simpler. It’s easy for me to whip up (or have the boys whip up) a triple batch of pancakes or a big bunch of muffins or a few loaves of Stir-and-Pour Bread to go with our meals.
It is important to me that our grains be whole and nourishing, not just filling and empty. If at all possible, I do like our wheat, oats, rice, corn, and other grains to be organic and non-GMO. I’m blessed to have a Nutrimill to grind our own flour – which makes our baked goods incredibly delicious.
5. Healthy Sweeteners
I’ve recently shared that I rarely buy sucanat anymore because of the expense. In addition, I can no longer tolerate much sugar. Seeing as none of us need sugary treats, and our boys get plenty from all their outside activities – I am making fewer dessert-y foods overall.
But I love our raw, local honey. We use real maple syrup on our waffles and pancakes. Sucanat or brown sugar are used in my baked goods. And liquid stevia has become a staple. I keep all of these on hand at all times, usually buying them online.
6. Dairy Products
I hesitated putting this one way down here, but when I look at the quality of most of our dairy products – they are usually just straight from the grocery store, which shows that I no longer make this a huge priority. We do buy a gallon of raw, organic milk from local farmers each week. Funny, isn’t it, and my family of big eaters only uses one gallon of milk each week? That’s because we just use it for cooking. None of my boys likes drinking milk, and our natural doctor has recommended that it isn’t a big need. So I don’t make milk a big priority. I love that I can get the good stuff, though!
As for cheese and cream – right now I have chosen to save money by skipping the organic/raw varieties. We buy these items on sale at a regular grocery store.
I should also mention that I do still make our buttermilk from our raw, farm-fresh milk. I only make yogurt and kefir occasionally – mostly in the summer when we’re making more smoothies! (I’ve also been using coconut milk more often for this type of drink – mainly to give our bodies variety of nutrients.)
7. Nuts and Beans
We love making our own Peanut Butter and Almond Butter. I like buying organic nuts if I can, either from Azure Standard or Braga Farms. I buy organic beans in bulk from Azure – though we really don’t go through them very quickly. They aren’t a favorite around here.
8. The Other Stuff
There are many other food items – from spices to baking powder – that I haven’t mentioned here. Just like all the rest – if I find a good organic source for these foods, I go for it. If not, I don’t sweat it as long as it still qualifies as “real food.” We also sometimes buy a convenience food item (like chips!) balancing those with plenty of nourishing options. I feel like I’ve probably forgotten some major food group in this list of priorities – so fire away with your questions!
How about you?
I’d love to hear what you consider to be your top priorities when purchasing food for your family!
Kathleen says
Yes, yes, yes. I could have written this exact same post. Even the part about little boys to teenage boys, little food budget to big food budget! But then it wouldn’t have been written by Laura, so nowhere near as good!
Serenity Summers says
This list was awesome timing! Like anything else in life our food priorities have shifted over time. Recently though, we have been trying to get back to cleaner eating. Your list helped give me a starting point for our food priorities. Actually, your list looks exactly what I had in my head ???? Thank you, Laura, for keeping it balanced and real!!!!
Brandette W. says
Isn’t it funny how our priorities for food change as our season of life changes? I have recently been evaluating our food choices/budget and started making some changes when I did our grocery shopping today.
The changes I committed to making are just a few things to help overhaul and accentuate the meals I make at home. I cook dinner at home every night, except Sat & Sun. Mommy gets the day off those days. I also make homemade lunches for my husband and young son to take each day. I do still use some processed foods to be honest, I just don’t have the time to cook each and every thing from scratch during this season of my life with a young kindergarten, tons of homework, housework, etc.
But, the changes I am starting to make this week are:
1- we are going to start drinking a glass of milk with dinner each night. I grew up drinking milk with dinner my whole life. But a few years back when my husband and I changed up our eating habits to cut calories, we dropped milk all together. It has been bothering me for quite awhile now. I don’t feel we get enough calcium, vit D, nutrients as we don’t eat a ton of other diary products. So, milk is back on the menu! I made a small change to it as well, I always bought skim or back in the day 1%. My husband doesn’t really like those, and I think we need a bit more fat in our milk since it contains fat-soluable vitamins that you might not get from non-fat. So, I upped it to 2%.
2- I am buying better quality breads. For quite awhile, I have bought plain white Sunbeam bread. I know, bad. I changed that to a high quality Oat whole grain bread. So yummy!
3- Ramp up the Fruits & Veggies!!! We weren’t making this a priority and I fear we lacked many vitamins and nutrients. Therefore, our fridge is always full of fresh fruit, veggies, and we also have a big stock of frozen veggies. My kindergartener is not a big fruit or veggie eater, heck, he is the pickiest eater every with only a select few foods he will even eat. But, I changed the rules….you will try at least 1 bite of everything I offer. Don’t like it, ok. But, maybe you will….we found he likes canteloupe & fresh pineapple recently. HA!
4- Ramp up the fish! We love fish, but I don’t make it often. I have an excellent Salmon recipe I make, but I don’t have any for Tilapia, Cod, Flounder. I have/am working on stocking my freezer with these and am working on new recipes to hopefully find favorites.
I know that many might disagree with my choices. But, for my family, this is a good direction for us right now. And, I am sure it won’t last forever, and eventually I will need to reevaluate and change it again. But, right now I am happy with the direction and am hopeful it will help our immune systems and health overall.
Great post, Laura! I thoroughly enjoyed it!!
Birdie says
Brandette, thank you! My aunties podiatrist once told her that a cup of milk a day will help our bodies meet its calcium needs.
Tiffani Keyes says
I would love to actually see some of your menus (again…..I know, you were getting away from that), but I’m still in that “one-dish-make-it-stretch mode. “
Ivy Mae says
My #1 is buying whole foods instead of processed. #2, since my husband is fighting high blood sugar, is healthy sweeteners (honey, maple, and cane syrup only) and grains (no white flour or rice).
The rest kind of falls into place thanks to our garden and our chickens, ducks, and rabbits. I try to have grace with myself during busy seasons since overall we do very well.
Oh, maybe I should add that I hate soda with the heat of many fiery hells, so that may very well be my real #1–no soda!! (or “coke” as we call every variety of soda here in rural Florida, ha ha)
Jeanette Wood says
Laura, I loved this post. Our family list looks very similar. I’ve started using the pink Himalayan salt. In fact, I recently purchased 55lb of it! We should have salt for awhile! :-) https://www.azurestandard.com/shop/product/20884/
Jocy says
Thanks for the reminder: “God is bigger than a chicken” I needed that. Just like you, freggies are #1, i think i should buy more though. And do better at prepping them. Then i guess it’ll be meat, i haven’t try grass fed, the prices don’t go with my budget n i heard it taste different (maybe one day i’ll give it a try), then whole grains, good fats, dairy, etc
Thank you Laura
RaShell @ Mommy's Apron says
I love this relaxed and sensible list! There is so much freedom in doing the best you can and not sweating the rest. :)
June says
You do a good job at feeding your family. I totally agree with you about fruits and veggies. Sometimes the 3 sections on our dinner plates include 1 fruit and 1 veggie & 1 protein instead of pasta or rice?
There was a child that almost died from drinking raw milk because of the bacteria? My kids drink organic but not raw?
I allow to Many white flour foods in our house??
Birdie says
Bravo Laura! This is a simple, straightforward, uncritical list! Thank you so much for your funny and oh so helpful tips. You brighten my day, 8-)
Birdie says
Hi again Laura. 15 minutes of sitting by a window for vit.D from the sun is good for us to. “all natural, non-fattening”, hee hee!
Lisa says
My list is similar to yours, except I focus more on what NOT to buy than what TO buy. Lately, I’ve been paying special attention to fats. I totally agree with your stance on the fats, especially margarine. All I have to do is look at my mom’s health condition to remind myself of this. I try not to buy anything with the word “hydrogenated”, while at the same time trying to move away from all oils in general and sticking only to sat fats. BTW this makes it very difficult to find acceptable tortilla shells for our burritos and tacos. My biggest “beef” right now (pun not intended) is the meat. I HATE buying it from the store, but my husband hasn’t gone hunting in three years, and the good stuff is too expensive. Dairy is another big no-no for me – all those hormones and antibiotics I believe is why so many of us are unhealthy. I do eat some cheese, but it’s probably a blessing that I’m lactose intolerant if it keeps me away from the milk. Just yesterday when my hubby and I were grocery shopping, we reminisced about how we used to buy boxed meals like Hamburger Helper and Kraft macaroni & cheese. Now we find them totally disgusting. We have come a LONG LONG way, yet still have more changes to make as we continue to educate ourselves. Thank you for this post!
Karli says
Our biggest change has been our meat- I was trying to buy organic/free range when possible but it was pricey!!! But my wonderful hubby decided to go hunting this year and now my *new to me* freezer is stocked with a whole elk and antelope! Plus a friend raised and slaughtered her own lamb this past year so I have a lamb in there too- although not really sure what to do for it… Got any good lamb recipes??? ????
Kristin says
Lamb is my favorite meat! In winter, Shepard’s pie is delicious. I make mine with double the veggies (onion, carrots and celery). Lamb stew is also hearty. I also make deconstructed kabobs. I marinate lamb stew meet in lemon juice, olive oil and minced garlic, them bake them on a broiler pan with sliced onions. (Alternately you can put them on skewers and grill) In summer you can make sliders with ground lamb, Greek seasonings and red onion and serve them in whole wheat pita bread halves topped with tomato, raw onion, spinach, tzatziki, feta cheese, etc. I make Greek nachos, homemade whole wheat pita chips topped with ground lamb and onions sautéed with Penzey’s Greek seasoning. I top the pita chips with a scoop of lamb, chopped tomatoes, spinach and peppers, tzatziki, and feta cheese.
Kristin says
I love your realistic approach to real food! I put VEGGIES, and fruit first, as in we should eat more veggies then fruit. I also can’t afford much organic produce in winter months I regularly spend $85 a week on produce, not including what is already in the freezer. Sadly, most of that is not organic. We do however, eat humanely raised, local grass fed/pastured beef, lamb, pork, eggs and dairy, plus free range chicken, and wild caught fish whenever possible. We just eat less of it. When I can’t afford organic dairy, I at least buy BGH free dairy. I cook from scratch using healthy fats, whole grains (limiting our gluten consumption) and limiting our added sugars.
Tina says
This list looks a lot like the one my Danni l8tr uses. We do have to modify our list however because my two boys have different food allergies. My oldest son deals with celiac disease and my youngest has a rare allergy to all beef proteins. I have many people ask what we eat because I will not make more than one meal. We tend to eat a LOT of fresh veggies, fruit, and lean proteins. We don’t buy special milk for my youngest one because he won’t drink it. We had to find a way to satisfy everyone in my household with one grocery budget. So far we are doing awesome.