Feeding the Family: Battlefield in the Kitchen 2019 Edition

We did a couple posts back in 2014 called The Battlefield is in the Kitchen: Part 1 and The Battlefield is in the Kitchen: Part 2. I thought it would be nice to throwback to those and expand on them with more of a family focus.

If you’ve been visiting the blog lately, you’ll have noticed a new series I’ve been doing called Feeding the Family. Compared to 5-years ago when the first Battlefield posts went up and my kids were 2 and 4, their needs were not very aligned to the way I chose to eat. That was the applesauce and halved grapes stage. 

But, we’ve now entered a different stage of their lives and our lives as a family and as I reread the Battlefield tips, through my mom lens, I felt like they really were not very helpful for applying to my family! I’m willing to bet that if you have a family with children, you would agree.

Here is the updated 2019 version:

Plan Ahead: the original recommendation was to plan on cooking in bulk 1 or 2 days per week. While adults intent on maximizing their time in the kitchen may be just fine with eating the same 2 or 3 meals for a whole week, kids are not!

Okay, so if you’ve seen many of the mommy-style food blogs, you’ll see elaborate meals prepared for children, that are (in my experience) not realistic. We’re approaching this battlefield-style, so we’re not going to have time to “plan ahead” and make turkey-cucumber pinwheels with homemade mayonnaise and black bean brownie animal cutouts. We’re going to get real. Real practical.

Planning ahead for family meals if you are working during the day and/or are a single parent is a super challenge. But here are some of the things I have found that work:

• If you prepare food in bulk, do so judiciously. Pick things that keep well for several days. For example, a properly seasoned hamburger will stay delicious for a couple days. Just reheat it, and stick it on a fresh bun with some salad. The whole family will enjoy this.

• Have staples on hand that hit your targeted family nutrition goals.

• Draft a few meals to make during the week and shop for them ahead of time. I say “draft” because...

• Be willing to be flexible and you’ll live to fight another day! My best plans for meals during the week - even with ingredients on hand - are often no match for our schedule! Sometimes, you’re going to need to pull that pizza out of the freezer.

Purge Your Pantry: again the original recommendation may be a bit too extreme for families. As much as I personally would never miss Oreos or potato chips in my pantry, the other 75% of my family definitely would! 

I’ve tried to find a reasonable middle-ground here. I do adhere to the principle of “If it is in your house eventually you or someone you love will eventually eat it.” 

Under that guideline I don’t want too much junk in the house. So, we generally keep only one dessert in the house at any given time. It might be ice cream OR cookies OR pie. But never all of those at one time. We also rarely ever have more than one type of chip. In terms of staples we keep plenty of (that the kids love) here’s what I always have on hand in the pantry or refrigerator:

• High protein pasta: Barilla makes a delicious high protein pasta. My kids aren’t quite ready for meat sauce, so this gets them the protein and carbs they need. Again, pairing it with a salad makes for a quick, easy, and realistically healthy meal.

• No sugar added Applesauce

• Soup - I do not consider this healthy, but rather a somewhat neutral food. The main advantage is the kids love soup and it’s crazy fast.

• Dried fruits (no sugar added, which is sadly limiting, but if you get the stuff with sugar you may as well just buy candy)

• Nuts 

• Nut butters

• Canned plain tomato sauce (no sugar added) & canned diced tomatoes - it’s shocking how often tomato can be used as a base for many meals

• Tortilla chips

• Shredded cheese and tortillas (quesadillas)

• Bread, yes, bread.

***With a proper stock of the basics, you can throw something quick together when the Plan Ahead technique occasionally falls apart!

Eat Real Food - this is a great principle, but I think being flexible and setting your mind on the 80/20 rule is best. Avoid overly processed foods 80% of the time. This will leave room for the desserts and chips I mentioned we have in our house!

Eat in Moderation - this is what parents need to live by! Eat to 80% full. For the kids, allow their natural appetites to guide them. When they are smashing food, let them! It means they are probably growing or about to. If they’re not hunger, don’t push the issue, get a few bites in and let them move on.

Make Small Changes - Yes! I wrote a post recently on this. Here’s the main key: you do not need to announce small changes! Just do them! I always cringe when I hear one or both adults in the family has decided everyone will now be eating Paleo. Please don’t, just don’t. 

• First of all, kids don’t need to eat that strictly.

• Second of all, neither do you!!! Start slowing with reasonable, sustainable changes. Hey, read my 80% rule - seriously, this is life changing. 

While you’re navigating this and trying to imagine a world where Twinkies don’t live in your pantry, please remember highly processed and prepackaged foods are literally engineered to be highly addictive. It’s worth it to break the cycle.

How the Food Industry Helps Engineer Our Cravings

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

Since you’re here: We have a small favor to ask! At SAPT, we are committed to sharing quality information that is both entertaining and compelling to help build better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage us authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics.

Thank you! SAPT

Feeding the Family: Plant Based Eating

People become plant based eaters for a lot of different reasons. I experimented it with it myself a number of years ago, and actually ate completely vegan for probably about a year and a half. There are many reasons people do this, some people may be concerned about health and longevity, there may be religious reasons, or they may just love animals.

Some people are maybe focused on the environment and making sure that our food sources are sustainable. Other people may just not like the taste of meat or the idea of where that comes from. For me, it was a health and longevity question that I wanted to experiment with.

People also have different definitions of what plant based eating means to them. For some people, that just means that ⅔ of their plates are plants, and there may be a little bit of animal protein on their plate. For other people it means they're vegetarian, or strictly vegan. Some only eat dairy, or only eat chicken, or only eat shellfish. You can really define it for whatever fits for you. But to me, the main point is that we're really focused on getting a lot of vegetables.

I encourage you, if you're interested, to try this out to do some experiments with yourself, and see how you feel and how you react. Just be careful and don't have too many rules or restrictions, just really switch the focus to getting lots of really good foods into your body and into your system.

As far as what to include in the diet, I would encourage making sure that you include beans and legumes because they're both good sources of protein. Be careful with these, there’s a lot of fiber in them and that could cause some intestinal distress. You may also want to look at higher protein whole grains like quinoa. A good rule of thumb as you're starting is try to limit soy products as much as possible. Again, focus your base on the plants and the beans and only have soy products in moderation.

You may also want to consider some supplementation. A good start would just be a good multivitamin, there are also algae based omega three fatty acids that you can use instead of fish based products. You can also purchase plant based protein powders, they have a different flavor than the milk based ones but I think they are palatable.

If you’re looking at experimenting for a longer period of time, you may want to get some blood testing done.

If you're a strength athlete, I recommend supplementing with three to five grams of creatine each day. You may also want to consider taurine and beta alanine, as these are useful for people who are 100% plant based athletes. Lastly, if you're getting into this and you're really sticking with it for a period of time, you want to just keep your eyes open for any hormonal disruptions that could affect your energy balance. For example, if you're eating a lot of processed soy, this can affect your thyroid and sex hormones. The same thing can actually happen if you're eating a lot of cruciferous vegetables. So kale, cauliflower, broccoli, things like those can also affect your hormonal health and even your nutritional nutrient status. All that fiber binds to fat based substances like steroid hormones, and then pulls them out of the body with that fiber when you go to the bathroom.

Another thing to keep an eye on with this kind of diet is undereating. Keep an eye on calorie intake and make sure your calorie intake is appropriate for your body size and your activity level. The other thing is, if you end up getting into some processed foods, or eating a lot of like nuts and nut butters for your protein source, then you may find you’re overeating. You want to keep an eye on those things.

You know, when I started eating a vegan diet I did enjoy it and I did feel good.

For me, what I found over time was it required a whole different skill set in the kitchen to prepare food. Preparing food when I was vegan was extremely time consuming, labor intensive, and expensive if the meals were going to be appetizing. After a certain period of time, my schedule just wouldn’t allow this amount of food preparation time.

When this happened I began going to the store and picking up convenience foods that were labeled vegan, but were extremely processed and filled with things I didn’t need. At this time 7-8 years ago, pre-cooked healthier items became more available such as pre cooked chicken breast, so the convenience foods I was eating to stay vegan were less healthy than the animal based products available.  So it dawned on me that I was actually starting to eat less healthfully than if I would just have a chicken breast. That's when I migrated back to, a more moderate style traditionally balanced diet.

The key when experimenting with these diets is to know what you are getting into and plan accordingly, stick to healthy options and keep your health in check.

Since you’re here: We have a small favor to ask! At SAPT, we are committed to sharing quality information that is both entertaining and compelling to help build better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage us authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics.

Thank you! SAPT