Real Food Update...A few Tried and True Recipes

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It's been a while since I've updated about our family's adventure with our RF Diet.  I can't express how glad I am that we were on a Real Food Diet before Maddie got sick.  When his Nephrologist told us he had to be on a low sodium diet, he told us that we would have to cut out all processed foods.  I told the Doctor we didn't eat processed foods or have many of them in our home.  He expressed that we should not feed him hamburgers or hotdogs or food from McDonalds.  I told him we don't eat processed foods or go to Mc Donalds hardly at all.  We do, but it's a rarity.

Anyhow, after having to read food labels, because let's face it I didn't before, I have learned so much about Sodium.  I never read the labels unless I wanted to find out what the ingredients were.  I suppose that after Maddie is off of his restricted diet, I won't be reading them that often.  Let me just tell you, there is a lot of Sodium in our food.  A lot.  Maddie's restricted diet allows for 150mg of Sodium per snack and 500mg per meal.  Just out of curiosity, I checked the Kraft Mac and Cheese food label.  I gave the kids Mac and Cheese almost once a weekend before our real food diet.  There are 580mg per one cup serving.  I would say he would eat between one and a half to two cups.  That's a lot of Sodium.

Eating out, has been nearly impossible.  It's not like we do it very often, but we ran out of food last week.  How dare I only purchase 1.5 pounds of ground beef for a family meal.  Apparently, we are up to 2 pounds a meal if we want left overs. So, we decided to try and order some food.  We thought that the Corner Bakery or McCallister's would be good choice.  Many of the food items on the menu were over 1000mg of Sodium on the kids menu.  We thought let's order pizza.  Once slice of the Veggie Lovers Pizza, Thin Crust from Papa Johns contains over 500mg of Sodium.  We ended up getting food from a Mexican Restaurant that delivers, and making Maddie his own meal at home.  He was okay with that.  I can't tell you how proud I am of him.  So I guess what I've learned is no wonder so many people in this country have Heart Disease or High Blood Pressure.  Many of our foods are loaded with Sodium.  The other thing is that I can't be more thankful for is making most of all of our foods.  There is a huge peace of mind in knowing what is exactly in your food because you made it yourself.

Okay, so I'm stepping off of my soapbox now.  I also wanted to tell you that we had salad the other night and most dressings have a ton of sodium.  I bought the lowest sodium dressing I could find.  2 tablespoons had over 250mg.  So, I put four in for our entire family's salad.  That thing needed dressing.  I'm not kidding you.  But the kids ate it like nothing.  There were no complaints, none.  They were basically eating spinach, eggs, tomatoes, carrots, etc. dry with no dressing.  I was hoping they would complain so I could add some more dressing to MY salad.  That's when I thought, geez this Real Food thing is working.

I wanted to share with you a few recipes that I LOVE.  That my boys LOVE from the 100 Days of Real Food Website.

My most favorite thing in the world:  Taco Salad.  I love her recipe!

Super Easy and delicious Chicken Recipes.  The kids have loved them too!

Slow Cooker Chicken

Lemon Roasted Chicken and Cauliflower  This was the first time the kids ate cauliflower.  They loved it.

And a must use recipe for Chicken Stock.  I cook whole chickens at least every other week so I can make the stock.  We use the stock for soups, rice, etc.

Don't forget the Whole Wheat Pizza Crust.  I can't wait to start making homemade pizza again after Maddie is off his diet.

Also, these Sloppy Joes were really good.  Not my grandmother's recipe of course, but hers calls for a whole bottle of ketchup...not exactly low sodium.  The boys didn't notice a difference and they didn't say a word about the carrots.  I used a whole onion, a whole bell pepper (recipe does not call for it), and eyed the celery.  I also used sugar instead of honey.  No Salt of course but I did add it when I ate my lunch at school the next day.  Do not tell anyone.

Anyhow, that's all I have for now.  Have a great evening!