YOU CAN DO IT! If you feel overwhelmed at the thought of eating healthier, just take a deep breath and go through these one at a time. Take baby steps and do what you can. Every little thing you change can have huge long-term implications for your health!
- #1 & #2: Start reading labels! Avoid trans fat and high fructose corn syrup! (This post also explains what a Rookie Tip is.)
- #3: Soda pop dangers
- #4: Do you know which milk is healthiest?
- #5: Is your microwave safe to use?
- #6: Take your cod liver oil!
- #7: Eat more eggs!
- #8: Sunshine benefits: don’t be afraid of the sun!
- #9: Meatrix Movies: Be aware & informed!
- #10: Choose local & organic food whenever you can
- #11: Avoid MSG!
- #12: Whole grains and unrefined carbs
- #13: Get rid of the bad fats in your kitchen!
- #14: Where to start?
- #15: Why you should only use REAL Maple Syrup
- #16: Learn about why you should try to get more coconut oil into your diet! (I didn’t do a specific Rookie Tip post about this, but wanted to link to the coconut oil post because it’s such an important thing to know about.)
- #17: Healthy Juice…Is there such a thing?
- #18: Shredding Cheese / Healthy Options – Rookie Tip
- #19: Where to find healthy meat
- #20: Healthy Bread Choices
Rookie Tips from YOU – read suggestions for beginners from readers!
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Kelly — just a quick note. We have whole milk in our refrigerater now! I even drank a small glass last night. Just wanted you to know that we continue to make small changes.
Liz, I have only one thing to say: WOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! You made my day!
Hi Kelly!
I’ve been waiting for your post about the 5K–you missed the best part, PANCAKES!
Me and my friends will be running in the Muir Twin Rivers Festival on May 17th–see you then?
Deb–from Fowler!
Deb,
I was hoping you’d sign in and say hello! I didn’t mention pancakes because I couldn’t stay for them! We had to get back home for a couple soccer games. I was so bummed I missed them, that I made pancakes and sausage for dinner tonight.
Can’t do the one on May 17th (2 soccer games and an anniversary party), but good luck, you are one motivated girl!
You left your message in this post instead of the 5K one, so I’m going to cut and paste our comments/messages over there…
Thanks for commenting and for your last-minute encouragement Saturday!
Excellent tips! It is so nice to see such great advice online!
I am a SERIOUS rookie… grew up in a 50% homecooking 50% processed foods home. I now have a family of my own (three under the age of six), and though it has taken me a long time to start reassessing some of that environment, I am doing some deep reassessing. I give you that background to say that, while these rookie tips are good, we 100% newbies need more than just a few tips. It’s like half of this website is in a foreign language to me! I have a BS in Ed., so I am not unintelligent, but coming from nowhere is overwhelming.
If you want my suggestions (and you may not!), I would love if you talk in specifics about how you started to change, how others can make change and add a little more information about why the foods you say are bad are bad. For instance, everyone bashes all boxed cereals, but I cannot seem to find a “why” with the exception of HFCS, but not all cereals have HFCS (Multigrain Cheerios, for example). Also, can you cite or refer people to research to back up claims? Not that I implicitly trust the scientific community (look how many pharmaceuticals have been approved by “scientists” that have killed people), but I also do not implicitly trust bloggers either (truly no offense meant by that, just expressing a healthy dose of skepticism in this time of frauds and extremism).
And this is the biggie for me: can someone talk a little more about making incremental changes between things… for example, I’ve seen several posts about being “raw” milk. That is probably possible where I live (just north of metro Atlanta), but it’s not really practical to expect someone to go from store bought Skim Milk (yep, that’s me) straight to raw farm milk. What are mid-steps? What choices can I make slowly? And how do you find out about what local farms sell publicly? Are there websites for this? Should I go to a farmer’s market and ask around? Also, what about all these different grains? How do I use them and where do I get them? Is there anyone else out there from metro Atl who has pointers?
Ah! That’s a great idea -
could you add a section where people can post local farms/farmer markets/etc where you can look up your city and find out what’s available? Or maybe that’s available elsewhere online… does anyone know of sites with that type of information?
I want you to know I appreciate the effort you’ve put into this site. I’ve learned a lot in a short amount of time, but I still feel pretty overwhelmed. Even before I found this site, I’ve been making major overhauls on our lifestyle, but I need help on where to go from here!!!!
Thank you so much for any help!!
SJ, since there was so much to respond to, I’m copying your whole comment here, then my response will be in ALL CAPS within your words………..
I am a SERIOUS rookie
Thanks so much for such a wealth of info and for being so quick about answering my questions. I have a general question about raw foods. We have been trying to introduce more raw foods into our diet. However, I have 5 kids (4 boys) and there is no way we can afford to do raw dairy products, raw honey, raw nuts, etc all the time (especially the diary products). So, my question is, if I am cooking and need cheese or honey, or some other raw product I may have, is it worth using the raw stuff if I am just cooking it? Or can use the regular stuff for cooking or baking. I hope that makes sense. Thanks so much.
Hi Lanise, good question.
First of all, raw nuts are usually too expensive for me, too, and we don’t do much raw cheese (can’t find some that I like the taste of). Raw milk I couldn’t be without though.
To answer your question, no, raw is not that important if you’re cooking it. When I did day care and would have the pasteurized but not homogenized milk for the day care kids, I’d also use that milk for cooking and save our raw milk for drinking.
Kelly
A question. I’m in the process of making whey and cream cheese using raw milk and following the directions in “Nourishing Traditions.” There is a fine layer of mold developing on the top, as the milk separates. Is ok? This is my first time making this. I started making this 4 days ago and the mold just appeared yesterday.
Lynn,
You could scrape the mold off and it’s probably fine (don’t know for sure though), but are you making the cream cheese from raw milk yogurt or just raw milk? I’ve never done it that way, so I’m not sure, but if you make it from yogurt like I do, it only needs to hang a day or two.
Try asking (or searching the forums) on the Nourishing Traditions yahoo group. (Google it.) They’re always very helpful and know tons more than I do.
Kelly
I have been making raw milk butter for several years now, but am getting a freezerfull of buttermilk. I have used some, certainly don’t want to throw it out, but am still confused obout what to substitute it for . . . milk, water, buttermilk ? ? ? Can you help me?
Hi Barbara, I’d have to do some poking around to get a good answer for you (I’m thinking you could substitute it for regular milk in recipes though?), but since I’m out of time right now, how about if you come back on Tuesday when I’m putting up a guest post just on buttermilk, and you can ask there in the comments and you’ll probably get a lot of good suggestions, OK?
Hey Kelly! Just got turned onto your site and I love it.
May be a stupid question, but here goes — I love the taste of restaurant pancakes, and cant seem to get the home recipe to taste anything like them. Is buttermilk the trick?
Also, Im a huge fan of theperennialplate.com which recently did an episode on Whole Grain Milling company — they create a pancake mix. Ever heard of that brand? It looks delicious… and handmade.
Hi Mirra,
Sorry, just found this buried in my in-box, things are crazy now that my class is open for enrollment.
To answer your question, have you seen my pancake recipe? Sadly, the more white flour you add, the flufflier they are, BUT they are pretty darn good as is. I also like to add a lot of butter or bacon grease or whatever I’m cooking them in and that gets them nice and crispy on the outside.
There are a couple different recipes here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2008/07/10-healthy-breakfast-ideas.html
Sorry, I haven’t heard of that brand you mentioned, but homemade is so easy, then you know exactly what’s in it.
Kelly