Learning to eat healthily support thread

[questionssquestions]

I don't know what the name for this sort of eating is. 'Healthy' means different things to different people. Maybe 'normal', but most people in the UK are overweight, so normal is not ideal either.

Anyway, a lot of us need support in learning how to eat better, so I'm hoping there might be people who want to join this thread. This is not a weight loss thread, it is a healthy eating thread.

We try to:

• Eat 5+ fruit and veg a day
• Eat balanced meals (some starchy foods, fruit, veg, protein, dairy)
• Enjoy treats/desserts/puddings etc.
• Maximise our consumption of unprocessed and minimally processed foods
• Minimise our consumption of ultraprocessed foods
• Try to cook from scratch where we can
• Be mindful of portion sizes
• Build enjoyable exercise into our daily lives

We don't:

• Exclude food groups
• Talk of good/bad foods or being good/bad
• Calorie count, fast, detox, or join weight loss clubs
• Talk about our weight or clothes size

I'm hoping this can be a place for support, sharing of ideas and favourite recipes etc.

Ooh this sounds just what Im looking for. Im obese, know "diets" dont work but need a bit of reeducation. I have slowly drifted into whats convenient rather than whats good for my body.

Hi pineapple! I've got a toddler and a young baby who will be weaning before I know it.

We've also drifted into eating what is convenient. I want to reset our eating so that we pass good habits on to the kids.

I'll start by saying I tried a new jerk chicken recipe for dinner. It had lots of veg, with onions, peppers and peas, but it tasted awful! I think it was the spice mixture I used, or maybe the fact I was looking for a recipe that I could cook really quickly :(

We had some home baked banana bread (lockdown toddlers do a lot of baking) and greek yoghurt for dessert though, so the evening wasn't a complete bust!

Hiya, I'll join you.
We've got a 4 year old, an 11 month old, and have moved home 3 times in as many years. We've had a hell of a lot of pasta, oven food and takeaways in that time, and I've also done a lot of stress eating too.
My goals are:
1, cut out convienace foods by batch cooking
2, reduce refined sugar consumption
3, eat more veggie meals and fish

We have red meat once a month, but still eat a lot of chicken, which I'd like to reduce for budget reasons. I do use meat subs but don't want to have them all the time.
I've become a bit obsessed with menu planning, lol. I was recently given Nadiya Hussain's Time to Eat book, and she batch cooks/saves everything. There is actually a recipe for making soup from root veg peelings, which I'm curious enough to try once I've collected enough peelings.

I’d like to join! I’m kind of a dieting casualty. Growing up always felt ‘fat’ or big, was tall for my age etc, did some calorie counting in my twenties for wedding and then afterwards, but was generally - healthy weight. I’ve got two kids age 4 and 5 and after my youngest ds born he had eczema and allergies, I cut out dairy which is my favourite thing and this led to binge eating and gaining a couple of stone. Then I did slimming world And couldn’t sustain it. So I think I need to try and learn to eat healthily and how I want again. I also want to wean my family off sweet treats a bit but during lockdown they have got used to desserts everyday and dd is always asking what we are having for dessert everyday. So any ideas for that welcome! Today I’ve started with cheese on whole meal toast and tomatoes for brekkie, I’ve got a pre packaged chick pea salad for lunch and not sure about tea yet!

I had a bagel with humous and sundried tomatoes for breakfast (had some humous to use up), pasta with tomato sauce and chicken frankfurters for lunch, and dinner will be carrot and coriander soup with toast (to balance out the frankfurters). Tomorrow is dd2's birthday, so is a total write off, lol.

That all sounds yum glumy. We have chicken frankfurters in our regular shop because that’s one of my quick no cook teas I do when I just don’t have time to think. It’s pretty handy. Tea tonight ended up being breaded chicken from the freezer and frozen roast potatoes, I roasted some veg earlier courgettes and onions and also opened a packet of puy lentils (merchant gourmet) Ds are the lentils and dad ate the courgettes, neither were that impressed with the chicken and it did taste a bit bland actually! I also made a yum dressing with olive oil lemon salt and pepper. Do you guys eat tea with your children or later on? Before lockdown we used to eat later During the week because we were both out at work But now we are all eating together unless one of us working late at home.

Oh forgot to say the soup sounds good! I never make soup although sometimes my mum give me some for my freezer that she has made, usually lentil.

Gimme, thanks
Frozen chicken is one of my staples, it's dd1's favourite lol. I'm trying to cut back on processed food though. What did you do with the lentils? I quite like puy lentils but couldn't get Dh enthused. He's very keen to eat less meat, but he basically just wants to compensate with carbs so it's an uphill struggle to get pulses in there. I'm making a spinach and red lentil daal on monday though so he will have to lump it.
Since lockdown we've all eaten together too, it's been really nice, and certainly helped with getting dd1 to try new things.
I've been getting into making soups recently as it's so easy to make a big batch and stock the freezer. I recently treated myself to a second freezer and it's been an awesome time saver.
Do you meal plan a lot in advance? I never used to but since covid I try to avoid top up shops so plan weekly.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/carrot-coriander-soup
This is the soup I made. I used frozen coriander instead of fresh and used a bit less water than the recipe says.

Same here glumy, I would like to cut back on the oven food but it’s just so easy on a stressful night! The lentils I just poured out of the packet and sprayed some rapeseed oil on them, on my own plate I mixed with the roasted veg and dressing and left it plain for the fusspots, I suppose I am lucky my dh will eat anything offered. I wish I could meal plan but usually don’t. having said that I had the week off work this week
So I started writing down what we are having for tea in my diary which has helped. The spinach and lentil daal Let us know how it turns out. I’m so jealous of your extra freezer! My tiny freezer is currently the bane of my life. It’s all frozen up so I am trying to use up everything so I can defrost it ASAP and then refill with hopefully plenty of healthy stuff, maybe soup! I floated the idea of making smoothies at home with the kids today and they were interested so now I have to get a blender. Dh is cooking tonight- salmon, oven chips and frozen veg!

Soup sounds good. I made a leftovers soup this week which was surprisingly tasty (caramelised onions, roast patty pan squash, carrots, black beans - just added stock and a few red lentils).

I’ve done well with the fruit & veg today. I find if I can add a portion to breakfast, the rest tends to fall into place - this morning was pineapple and raspberries.

Felt I achieved a good balanced plate of roast dinner this evening - 1/2 was veg (cabbage, carrots, peas & squash - not a portion of each because they came from the garden, but probably 2 portions overall).

My main thing to work on is reducing alcohol.

Hi Gimme, so the lentil and spinach daal was underwhelming. Not sure if that was the recipe or my cooking though. At least we had paratas to go with it. I got a kenwood blender about a month ago, I absolutely love it! I sympathise with the small freezer, we had a tiny one for years. The main reason I liked our new house was the big kitchen, although I miss only having a small floor to mop, lol. Later this week I'm attempting Italian Italian aubergine dumplings. I'll report back...
What have you got planned?

Wilderness, that soup sounds awesome! I'm collecting left overs but I don't have enough to make into anything yet. I really struggle with veg, I find the texture of a lot of them off putting, so I end up disgusing them in my food like a toddler . I've made much more of an effort since having kids but I've still got a way to go.
I'm still breastfeeding at the moment so motivated to not drink, which is just as well for the diet as I like all the sugary fruit ciders. Dh isn't drinking while I can't so we just don't have it in the house. Chocolate is my main downfall, along with cake. The lockdown baking has not been good for me, sigh.

Hi all! How’s everyone?

Feeling a bit under the weather with a cold but luckily dh is with kids today while I work at home so managed to have a lunch time lie down.

I’m a bit annoyed about the cold as I was looking forward to doing some healthy cooking and I was trying to get my 5 a day for the last few days at least?! Oh well I think it’s because I had a couple of gins on Sunday night. Alcohol hates me.

Wilderness- I love the sound of your black beans soup- and well done on getting the fruit in early- I took a leaf out of your book and had fruit early doors-
banana and apple plus mums lentil soup

Then I’m going to have a quesadilla with chorizo, cheese, philly, jalapeños, (I’m an addict) and tomatoes. I’m using a white wrap but I might try the half white half whole wheat ones soon. What does everyone think about sholewheat pasta vs white pasta? I used to have all wholewheat in my twenties and now usually always white.

Not sure about tea/dinner yet, but I need to get a couple more fruit and veg in.

Yesterday we had fish fingers from ocado (chunky cod- expensive!) and home made baked chips. I think I overdid the oil on them but they were very crunchy and nice. The veg was baked beans and tinned sweetcorn.

Glumy- that’s a shame about the dal, if you want to try again I have a good recipe somewhere from a Sri Lankan lady I used to work with. I could dig it out and make it and report back? Maybe if you don’t put veg in it and have veg curry or roasted veg on the side you would like it more? Anyway well done for cooking while BF it’s so hard!

The aubergine dumplings sound v intriguing (and difficult!)

I’m not a fan of plain boiled veg but roasted is much nicer- roasted frozen cauliflower I’ve been meaning to try soon.

Should I get a kenwood blender? Which one do you have? I was thinking about getting a knock off nutribullet. Hmmm.

Ha! Hadn't realised that this thread had taken off!

Wilderness I also find getting a portion of fruit into breakfast sets me up for a good day. I can just never face it on an empty stomach, too acidic. Does home baked banana bread count?

Sorry about your cold gimme. I'm impressed you managed to catch one nowadays! I have a Kenwood food processor. Although with a baby around I've been just using pre chopped frozen veg, rather than using the processor to chop fresh stuff. I thi k I have a MultiPro Classic.

Oh, just realised you meant blender not food processor!

I've got a couple of weeks staycation and have the time to eat good food, rather than grabbing snacks whenever I have a baby free moment.

Today, breakfast was toast (from the bread maker), lunch was pitta, carrots and hummus, with greek yoghurt for dessert. Some more fresh bread and an orange for a snack. Will have veggie chilli and rice for dinner. Maybe banana bread and greek yoghurt after the kids go to bed (am breastfeeding so need a bedtime snack).

I treated myself to a new food processor and blender a few weeks ago (previously had a Kenwood for 25 years) - had lost a lot of attachments over the years. I bought a Bosch and it is much more compact so takes up less space on worktop. DS1 uses it for his daily smoothie, and I use it for meal prep.

@Gimmethatchocolate the quesadilla sounds good. I’m OK with wholewheat and brown pasta & rice but the family aren’t that keen. It also seems to take longer to cook.

We had stuffed peppers/courgettes for dinner which were really nice.

Hope you feel better soon, Gimme. I totally got blender and food processor muddled up! I use my food processor for smoothies though. It has a sort of disk lid you can put in for doing liquids. I have a stick blender which I use for soups and sauces.
If you can find that dal recipe I'd definitely be interested. Aubergine dumplings are tomorrow, it's a pretty simple recipe but doubtless there is plenty of scope for messing up, lol.

Hi, Questions. I'm envious of your bread maker! I love bread but the rest of the family less so. I mostly just toast sliced bread from frozen. How old is your baby? Mine's just turned 1, and she eats pretty much everything thankfully. My oldest was so fussy, and she's only just started to improve in the last year (she's 4 now).

On the white vs wholemeal side I'm not keen on wholemeal pasta or rice, but noodles are fine, and wholemeal seeded bread is nice.

glumy I love my bread maker. I've no time for actual baking, but the bread is so much nicer and more filling than hovis.

Baby is just 4m, so not even weaned yet, but toddler eats most things :)

Aubergine dumplings sound great, do you have a recipe to share?

Here's (hopefully) a pic of the dumplings, with the recipe pic in the background. My presentation is rather lacking but they were delicious. Quite a faff though. I'll try to post the recipe tonight when I have more time.

I was wondering which cooking oils everyone uses?
My favourite groundnut has been unavailable for a while now. I use olive oil as an ingredient but not for regular frying as I heard it degrades at high temperatures. Conflicting information online on this. I'm not so keen on the taste of rapseed oil, currently trying avocado oil for the first time. I also use ghee and coconut oil depending on what I'm making. I love sunflower but again worry about it forming trans fats.

I use rapeseed and sunflower, sometimes olive. I tried reaching the 'best' oil to use once and was also left confused. I do try to use actual oil rather than sprays though.

Same, I don't use sprays. I'm also thinking of ditching margarine once I've used up what I've got and just using butter. Then again my kitchen is freezing in winter so it would never be spreadable.

Here's the dumpling recipe, along with the sauce. I did the baked version, and when I scooped the flesh out it was pretty stringy so I gave it a minute in the good old Kenwood. The double fried version is probably awesome but with baked I could walk away and leave it for 20 minutes. I blended the sauce to make it more dd friendly.
Hopefully they are readable. The recipes are by Gennaro Contaldo.

I was wondering about this too recently. I always used to cook with extra virgin olive oil, then found out that was wrong so now cook with light olive oil or Rapeseed oil. I do use sprays sometimes but only if they are 100% oil. I have heard that coconut oil/ghee/butter is best- but don’t know if this is true or not? I find it all a minefield and don’t know where to get best info from to be honest. I need to switch to butter from marg- we still use vitalite or pure as a hangover from my ds having a dairy allergy. Avocado oil sounds nice!

Would love a bread maker! I have had a go at making bread a few times during lockdown though (don’t have time currently) but it was really nice and I enjoyed doing it.

Wow those dumplings! Extremely impressive.

Tried to have a healthy lunch today- boiled eggs, some Italian breadsticks (yum) cucumber tomatoes and olives.

Tea is going to be hot dogs because easy- and some raw carrots cucumbers and courgette on the side. And I’m powering through my cold to have a G&t tonight!