The GREAT BIG NUTRITION POST Part 3

I promised Deanna and I would be sharing more about what our families DO eat! So in Part 3 we will show a sample of what a day of meals might look like for our families!

First of all, I have to share this video! When Deanna sent this to me, I laughed so hard I almost cried because some days I feel like this...like if I try a new recipe and they hate it HAHA! Even if you just watch the pancake part, it will be worth it!!!

Here is a sample of one of our days this week and what we ate at the Basile House!

Breakfast:
*Milk (Almond for Mila and Zoya, “Sofia’s recipe/goat’s milk” for Sofia (4 oz))
*Pizza Eggs (Scrambled eggs with pepperoni and cheese, garlic, paprika, oregano, sea salt cooked in coconut oil) and pork sausage
*½ Happy Tots squeezeable pouch with flax seed, honey, and whole food supplements, vitamins, fish oils (for Zoya and Mila, Sofia’s supplements/vitamins, etc.  are mixed in her milk).

Snack:
*Gluten Free Banana/Chocolate Chip Muffins
*Milk (Mila gets the rest of the milk she didn’t finish with breakfast, and if she did finish she gets watered down juice, and Sofia gets another 4 ounces of her recipe)
*Zoya has snack at school M-F. I send GF snacks for days that kiddos bring in a snack that she can’t have. Her teacher asks for healthy snacks so many days are fruits or veggies anyways.

Lunch:
*¾ cup Almond Yogurt with ½ avocado each (mixed in)
*½ banana
*Zoya got a spoonful of coconut oil and extra flax seed with some happy tots food because she had not had a BM in a day…within an hour she went.
*Juice/Water mix

Snack:
*Veggie Straws (our weakness)
*Sofia’s recipe milk for Sofia
*Water/juice for Zoya and Mila

Dinner:
*Homemade Gluten Free Chicken Noodle/Vegetable Soup (with bone broth of course)
*Oopsie Rolls http://yourlighterside.com/2009/05/gluten-free-low-carb-buns-aka-oopsie-rolls/
*Almond Milk for Zoya and Mila

*Sofia gets one more 4 ounce drink (her only remaining “bottle” of the day) right before bed. Occasionally if we had an early dinner we will do a bedtime snack, but typically we don't because they are in bed a few hours after dinner :)

So that is a sample of what one of our days might look like! All of the girls drink from straw cups and Sofia gets one bottle right before bed to work on bonding. I try to get 12-16 ounces of “milk” (either almond, coconut, or goat’s milk) into the girls each day. The rest of the time I give them about 1 ounce of pear or apple juice mixed with 3 ounces of water (or so). We will be sharing more about what recipes we use for our littlest ones’ milk mixes! 

We do a lot of “platter-type” quickie lunches. They love cheese and Applegate pepperoni with some fruit for lunch. Mila is going through a stubborn picky phase right now (I hope it's a phase), so I will often mix whatever we are eating in with some mashed cauliflower or baby food for her and she will eat it that way much easier. 

A “real” foodie might look at our menu for the day and pick out things that we should change (like the cream cheese used in the Oopsie Rolls or the veggies straws, or add more raw veggies)....BUT this is what works for our family. The “balance” Deanna talked about is so important. Maybe cream cheese, for example, isn't an ingredient I’m thrilled about giving them, but the ease in making them, their delight in eating them, and the benefit of the eggs mixed with them is what I considered when I made that choice. We always have room for improvement, our diets aren't perfect, but I feel really good about what my kids eat most days!

And here is a little bit about what Deanna's family meals might look like for a day:

Ok, so OUR typical day might look something like this...but sidebar for a second: I’m loving looking at Sarah’s list because I can see so many foods that sound similar...and yet, I can see how we still do things a little differently.  That’s what this is all about!  What works for YOUR family can (and probably will) differ from what works for mine, and still be balanced.  Isn’t it awesome that we have so much freedom with food to find good choices and tailor them to our personal needs? I love it.  Ok, sidebar over :)   So a breakfast example at our house might be something like oatmeal and banana with almond milk for the older two.  Aleck has 4 oz. of ‘Aleck’s drink’ every morning, and then something like pureed quinoa with coconut milk, and bananas.  Sometimes, he eats oatmeal too!

For our morning snack, we might eat hardboiled eggs, pretzels, or crackers and have water to drink.

For lunch, maybe sunbutter (or natural peanut butter, since we aren’t nut free) and raw honey (or homemade jam) sandwich on a 12-grain bread with carrot sticks and coconut milk...this is one of my kid’s favorite ‘special’ lunches, and this twist on ‘PBandJ’ just makes ME feel good, too.  :)
Aleck would have something like mixed vegetables, lentils, and 4 oz. ‘Aleck’s drink’.  If we are eating something he can also have, then we would just puree some of that food for him to eat.

Afternoon snacks vary widely around here.  This past week, we were loving kiwifruit and homemade trail mix, but it really could be anything from homemade banana chips to veggie straws, to granola, to apples and peanut butter.  Snack is kind of a big deal around here (isn’t it always with small children?), and the minute our oldest gets in the car from kindergarten, snack is the word.  And it changes every day!  Unless mommy is at her wits’ end...then we might have the same snack for 3 days straight because that’s what is made, and that’s what is easy.  Please tell me you know what I mean....Ahem. :)
Aleck might get applesauce and rice rusks or really, any number of pureed foods.  He is just plain not discriminating between foods at all right now, so he just eats literally whatever I puree for him.  

A typical dinner would be vegetable chili with salad and coconut/almond milk to drink (ok...the kids drink that...mommy and daddy might drink iced tea or water).
Aleck would again get anything we are eating that is also good for his belly.  In this case, I would probably puree some of the beef, add brown rice, and peas or carrots for his supper.  He also gets about 4 oz. of his special drink.

Last but not least, our children rarely forget to ask for that bedtime snack...even if they have only eaten an hour ago, which kind of drives their daddy nuts.  Ha.  A typical night snack here would be a fruit smoothie, or vanilla coconut milk yogurt...something along those lines.  Aleck also gets his last bottle at this time.

In Part 4, Deanna and I will be sharing our "pediasure replacement recipes" for kids who are liquid or semi-liquid dependent, and/or malnourished. We've both had so many inquiries about this, so we're excited to finally get that post going! We also plan to share a "super foods" list and explanations of why they are great foods and why we try to incorporate them into our meals/recipes.