None of my little ones have seemed too enthused over solid foods at first (you would never guess this from the way my big kids pack food away now.) Galen seems no different.

As I’ve talked about before, our family follows traditional food recommendations from groups like the Weston A. Price Foundation and the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation. There are talks in those groups about how no traditional culture delayed solids past 6 months. But I think even if they introduced solids starting around six months, not all babies took to the with great gusto straight away.

I am, however, trying to offer to Galen pretty consistently, and I’m being very choosy about what he gets. Galen’s first official food was a spoon of baked sweet potato covered in butter. He seemed to like that.

Most of his meals thus far have been egg yolk, however. Egg yolk and then egg yolk with a little bit of liver grated in to them. (In case you are wondering, it’s the egg white that is usually allergenic and should be delayed until baby is a year. I feel comfortable giving my baby egg yolk – I did wait several days after his first taste before giving anything else to watch for reaction.)

Some evenings he has attacked his egg yolk and liver with gusto. Other nights, not so much. He’s also had a taste of homemade chicken broth – he was unsure of exactly how to proceed with getting that off the spoon. And he greatly enjoys banging a chicken drumstick bone (all attached small bones/slivers picked off) around, but hasn’t really yet managed to the bone to his mouth.

The best starting foods for babies are not, as we’re told most of the time now, grain cereals. Cereals are really hard for babies to digest. Because Scott has a hard time digesting grains we’re planning to delay giving Galen any grains until he is 2 years old. But for all babies grains are hard to digest – the digestive enzymes for grains begin to develop in the second and third years of life. Even rice cereal is not easy to break down – and it’s also pretty worthless nutritionally.

Nutrient rich foods are the best thing to start your baby on. I always wait until six months to introduce solids though some people still like to introduce at four months. But after six months you can give your baby egg yolk (I soft boil Galen’s), tiny amounts of grated liver, butter, and broths. Babies need a lot of fat I also feel pretty comfortable with giving sweet potato, avocado, and squashes to babies around the 7-8 month mark.

I am excited about starting Galen on solids and I’ll continue to share our adventures. Enjoy the above picture from one of Galen’s first solid meals… it’s also a rare shot of him without a hat Sorry it’s grainy – it was taken with our video camera!

For more information on feeding babies check on my review on the book Healing Our Children.

Now that we’re done I can say that we’ll stick with the traditional foods style of eating.  Not 100% because that’s just hard in “modern” life.  But I learned some valuable lessons to help make healthy eating more do-able.  The biggest thing was to make sure that I have good meals in the freezer ready to go when I need them.

We ended our challenge and went ahead and ordered a pizza right after.  The end result of that was strange.  First, the pizza did not taste nearly as good as I remembered pizza tasting.  It just tasted sweet which really wasn’t pleasant.  I wanted a cheesy, saucy taste and it was just sweet.  We decided that next time we want pizza we’re just going to make it ourselves with homemade crust.  By getting pizza we’re already getting something with gluten anyways, and it may as well be healthier than ordering from a pizza place.

The pizza also gave me an upset stomach and tore my digestive track up from start to finish, so I certainly wasn’t endeared to it at all…  It got at least one of the kids too (evidenced by the fact that our kids sometimes forget to flush after going potty).  However, nobody wanted to confess forgetting to flush

Speaking of gluten – we’re a gluten-free home because Scott is gluten-intolerant – we did try properly prepared sourdough bread on the trial.  And happily it tastes not only delicious, but Scott is able to eat it with no ill effects.  I think that’s one of the biggest bonuses of eating well, and of eating so much soup, broth, and ferment food.  Those things have helped our digestion enough that Scott can tolerate sourdough (this is real sourdough though, fermented starter and allowed a slow rise – he still can’t eat the “fake” sourdough that’s sold in most stores).  We’ve been getting a loaf every couple of weeks or so and enjoying slices buttered.  I’m happy because this summer we may actually be able to have some picnic lunches with sandwiches.  My one lament about being a “GF” house is that the ease of sandwiches isn’t available.

The kids all did well and ate voraciously (as per usual) during the challenge.  Cassidy does seem to have gained some weight, which makes me very happy.  Her face looks a bit fuller and she’s getting some padding.  I think she could stand to gain a bit more so I’m still focusing on a good fat-rich diet for her.

So where are we going from here?  I’m going to keep working on a nutrient-dense traditional diet.  I’d like to keep up with about 90% or so of our eating being traditional foods.  I’ve gotten into the habit of soaking things and I think I’ll be able to keep that up.  Using dried beans instead of canned is quickly becoming a habit

We’re also going to try and focus on more local foods straight from the farmer.  We’re planning to sign up for a CSA for our summer and fall vegetables, supplemented with our own first gardening effort.  I’m looking forward to both of those things.  We try and buy our red meat locally too, from a local beef herd and also from a bison herd.  Once we get a freezer (if we can manage it in this house…which isn’t likely) we’ll probably buy beef by the half cow which will be really nice!

I’m also taking advantage of our local buying co-op to get good food in bulk (like our dried beans, rice, and oatmeal) because bulk buying allows for a good discount and gives us the whole foods to prepare.

I’m really pleased with how un-complicated our grocery lists are now.  Vegetables, grains, and meat and dairy and we’re pretty much set.  Canned tomato products and coconut milk are about the only thing we buy in a “processed” state.  It’s nice.

And of course the food has been delicious!  I feel like we’ve really enjoyed good foods, and I’ve learned to streamline some so I can enjoy them even more   I’ll continue to work on tweaking our diet and decided some further health goals for our family – the 30-day trial system is working well for us!

We did have a point this weekend where I had to give in and allow the use of corn tortillas from the store.  I had no other grains or beans ready to go, everyone was hungry, and my family is not satisfied with a meal that doesn’t include either grains or beans to give some sort of carb illusion.

The moral of the story – always have beans or rice or something that is properly prepared in the freezer.  Actually, I always need to have meals in the freezer that can be pulled out and cooked.

The real issue was I was exhausted.  As I’ve mentioned in my blog posts the past couple of days, last week was completely exhausting for me and by the weekend I could hardly function.  I felt like I was walking around in a fuzz and I’m just thankful I don’t have to “go to work” like Scott does.  I’m not sure how I’d manage that.

So last week highlighted again the need to have good, nutritious meals in the freezer, or the ingredients to put together quick meals with minimal preparation.  This week I’ve planned to double most of my main dishes so that I’ll have that freezer supply.

Now that Galen is here it’s going to be awhile before I can do a marathon freezer cooking session like I did to have us supplied with meals (and yep, we’ve eaten all 44 meals) – but I can double or triple recipes relatively easily.

I don’t feel burned out like I did after the first 7 days of our trial.  Last week’s issues were mostly unrelated to meal planning, and the strategies that worked to help streamline in the kitchen really have helped.  I still spend time in meal preparation – around 20 minutes for breakfast, 30  minutes for lunch, and an hour for supper – but on the whole I feel it’s going well.  I’d like to get the time spent on supper down further, and think I may try to start doing some of the prep at snacktimes.  I found that helped last year before Galen was born.

Overall we are feeling good.  The “big boys” Asher and Brennan came down with colds last week, but the rest of us didn’t.  Their colds went pretty quickly too so their bodies cleared whatever was needed to be cleared.

The big kids are all pretty cheerful and content, helpful, and strong.  Galen has been cranky the past few days and drooling a lot.  It’s early yet for teething but maybe there’s something going on down deep?  He has been going to bed easier most nights.

I’m feeling great (other than tired) and feel like I’ve been able to spend a lot of time being productive.  This is a good thing because I start to feel like I’m going crazy if I’m not “being productive.” :p

Scott says that he’s feeling good and that makes me happy.  I like providing good food that makes my family happy.

Getting more efficient

First, soaking everything for the week at once then putting it in the fridge was a lifesaver.  It really helped me because I didn’t need to try and remember to soak things when I was already tired in the evenings.  The only problem I’ve encountered with soaking everything on the same nice is that I run out of glass bowls.  I did major soakings over two nights because of this.

The other thing that helped a lot was making sure I keep up with the kitchen cleaning.  This is challenging because like I said before, we use so many dishes and pots and pans.  But it’s much easier to take a few minutes to rinse and soap the pots down right after I use them than it is to convince myself to go back into the kitchen after I’ve finally gotten everyone fed.

I do feel like I’m getting more efficient in the kitchen, though.  I’m working on a few other things too, like being sure I’m cooking 1 or 2 meals every week that can easily be doubled or tripled to put in the freezer, and planning a crock-pot meal or two.

We have two crock pots, which has been really handy.  One is a 5 quart size and we also have a smaller sized one, I’d say it’s a 3 quart one.  I tend to make entrees in the 5 quart but the 3 quart is perfect for cooking beans and things.  I also tried doing beans overnight on low without boiling them first this week and that works very well for all the types I tried (kidney, black, and pinto).  I am still soaking them the night before.

How we’re feeling

Physically still feeling good.  Regular every day.  I’ve always had these small bumps along the backs of my arms – you couldn’t see them but I could feel them and I can’t feel now.  I’ve also had a wart on right hand forever and it is almost gone!  This thing has been stubborn enough to live through multiple freezings.  And now in two weeks it’s disappearing completely.  I’m happy.

The kids are doing well too.  They’ve continued to be very cheerful and helpful.  Our house has never stayed so nice.  Part of this is because after the holidays we started working really hard on teaching them to take care of their possessions and our living space.  But I think full bellies and good nutrition certainly help their dispositions.

Scott had to eat a lunch at the office last week so that interrupted his 30 days.  He’s mentioned several times that he’s never felt better than he does now though.  Not sure if that’s just all the good traditional foods or just me cooking for him :p

I’m still tired but I think that’s more from not going to bed until later than usual this past week, and having some children up in the night than anything else.

No battling with cravings at all this past week (for me at least).

Enjoying the challenge

All in all I’m really happy with how things are going and looking forward to the next two weeks.  I feel like my kitchen is looking great and I’m starting to get a better hang of how to keep traditional foods prepared.

This week I’m going to go over various traditional food protocols I’ve written out from all the books I’ve been reading to try and refine our meals even more.  I’m also working on posting reviews of the books I’ve been reading; I’ll post to the blog when I finish those!

Yes, this week we’re eating a lot of winter squashes.  But they are inexpensive and in season so I’m serving them. Avocados have also been on perpetual sale, we must be getting a lot trucked in.

This week I’m experimenting with a suggestion of Dr. Pottenger’s, which is to serve a green salad and two cooked veggies with supper each evening. We’ll see how that goes (i.e. does it stress me out a ton?) I can remember that my grandma always served a salad and 2-3 veggie sides.

As far as salad goes those are working out very well. I buy two heads of lettuce each week and use one for the Caesar salad and one for the Enzyme salad – those two salads carry us through the week for suppers and even a couple of lunches. The carrot salad I make with our liver supper makes a little less but it still goes for that meal and for a lunch. So salads are working out nicely.

We’re beginning week 2 of our “traditional foods” 30-day challenge. Thus far benefits have been: my milk supply is literally overflowing, and the milk is very rich; Cassidy seems to be putting on some weight, the kids are pretty cheerful, and everyone except Scott seems to be full for a time between meals.

The kids and I sometimes get a snack that Scott doesn’t get though, and he really dislikes being hungry. I’m still working on good snacks to send with him to work – pints of soup, I finally got our crispy nuts done, etc. And at night after supper I try and make a nourishing before-bed snack because he likes those too. I tend to crave sugar and carbs at that point as well.

I’ve written about some of the challenges I’m facing in my food challenge 7 day update. I’ve also considered some ways to streamline my kitchen time in that post. My “to-do” lists look more manageable now :p

On to the menu plan!

Monday – B: Eggs, beef and veggie scramble; oatmeal with butter and yogurt
L: Black bean soup and kimchi
S: Meat loaf (using brown rice instead of bread crumbs); enzyme salad; simple soup; steamed broccoli (w/ hollandaise if I’m motivated); steamed squash, kraut.
To-Do: cook rice @ lunch, soak rice, start fermented sweet potatoes, soak rice, start kraut

Tuesday – B: Eggs, beef and veggie scramble; oatmeal with butter and yogurt
L: Beans and rice, Jamaican style; simple soup, kimchi
S: Chicken supreme (using leftover chicken); Caesar salad; coconut chicken soup; sliced avocado; steamed squash, rice, kimchi
To-Do: start beans and rice early AM, make whey, soak rice, start crock pot kidney beans before bed.

Wednesday – B: Eggs, beef and veggie scramble; oatmeal with butter and yogurt
L: White bean chili soup; kimchi
S: Liver w/ onions; Balsamic carrot salad; simple soup; steamed spinach; steamed squash; rice; kraut
To-Do: visit farm store for beef products, soak liver in lemon juice (at lunch), thaw a bison heart.

Thursday – B: Eggs, beef and veggie scramble; oatmeal with butter and yogurt
L: Beef stew; kraut
S: Black-eyed peas and greens; enzyme salad; coconut chicken soup; sliced avocado; rice; kimchi
To-Do: soak rice, study a new fermented veggie recipe for trying next week.

Friday – B: Eggs, beef and veggie scramble; oatmeal with butter and yogurt
L: Minestrone; kraut
S: Spaghetti w/ meat sauce served over rice; Caesar salad; Roman egg soup; steamed broccoli; steamed squash; kraut
To-Do: cook pinto beans in crockpot overnight, grind bison heart.

Saturday – B: Scott makes breakfast
L: Pate; fermented sweet potato; squash; kimchi; coconut chicken soup.
S: Chili (making a triple batch to freeze two portions); Caesar salad; simple soup; sliced avocado; steamed squash; rice; kimchi
To-Do: start chili cooking at lunchtime

Sunday – B: Scott makes breakfast
L: Omelettes; simple soup; baked beets; kraut
S: Roast chicken over potatoes; Enzyme salad; simple soup; carrots sautéed in butter; steamed squash; kraut
To-Do: soak rice, soak oats for the week, sprout seeds, start chicken stock, soak – kidney, pinto, and black beans for the week

Visit the Organizing Junkie for more meal plan ideas!

I have been having major cravings too, to be fair. All for usual stuff I crave – sub sandwiches, chocolate, and the most horrible – Pasta Roni Shells and White Cheddar :p Talk about processed! They’re all passing cravings, and I’ve been able to get rid of most of them by having a hearty snack, like a slice of raw milk cheese and a glass of milk, or an avocado half or something of that nature. It’s the fattier and protein rich snacks that seem to help with the sugar/carb cravings (which is what I have).

Burnout

The other huge challenge encountered…on Friday to be precise… was burnout from being in the kitchen. I found myself completely and utterly tired of being in there, of cooking, preparing, and more than anything else, serving it all out.

I already wrote that I planned to do all my weekly soaking at one time. With the exception of our rice I’m going to soak everything for the week tonight and put it in the bottom of the fridge to await its turn to be cooked.

I’ve also been calling the children into the kitchen to help carry plates and cups out. Scott helps with that for many meals as well. It’s strange that I find serving so overwhelming but I do. Maybe it’s time to let the kids learn to serve out salads and veggie sides onto their own plates too.

Today I feel absolutely exhausted which I believe is due much more to the fact I was up past midnight lats night than it is to anything with our diet.

Thinking of Solutions

I’ve still been pleasantly full most of the time. The only drawbacks so far have been spending so much time in the kitchen and the cravings. But I think cravings are to be expected when my body is getting completely weaned from processed foods. And I’m working on the kitchen time.

I need to come up with some “quick meals” for when I can’t make the planned meal for whatever reason. I did well last night, when we got home quite late. I simply pan-cooked a steak and some mushrooms then used beef stock and cream to make a quick sauce and served it over leftover soaked and cooked rice. I had leftover salad that I served on the side.

Normally I rely on stocks to make soups in a pinch but I didn’t get my chicken stock started, nor did I have any of the beans I normally make soups with. So that brings up another thing – I absolutely can’t miss anything I’m supposed to prep on a day or else we’re really out of luck.

Or I need to make sure there’s always back-ups. That’s probably most prudent. I should plan to get several quarts of stock up in the freezer and I think I’ll freeze cooked beans in cup-sized portions that could easily be added to a soup. I’m also planning a huge batch of chili this week which I should be able to put two meals up into the freezer for.

A Need for Planning

So this takes a lot of planning, and I’m still working out how to be most efficient so I’m not getting overwhelmed with kitchen time – and I don’t run out of good food so we end up eating junk.

I’m hoping to learn some good “quick meal” recipes too. This week’s Real Food Wednesday is going to feature real “fast food” – I can’t wait.

On Kids and Milk

On the kid front the kids are doing great – and I’m thrilled that Cassidy couldn’t button a pair of pants this week! Upon trying on some pants that she’s been unable to wear (because they’d fall off) she found they fit nicely. The kids have all been pretty cheerful and content.

My milk supply is more generous than ever. I have never had a problem with supply but this is just ridiculous – showers of milk anytime Galen nurses and it’s thick and creamy. It’s a bit annoying to me because I get flooded constantly (Galen still nurses pretty much every hour), however, I can’t really complain about so much milk of good quality!

Hopefully this week I’ll get things more streamlined and figured out. I’m also hoping I”ll have more energy. It’s going to be interesting to see how things go as we enter week 2 of our challenge!