My reality more like this: I am lucky to be wearing matching clothes when I leave the house. My bathtub gets cleaned maybe once a month, and I use the Method stuff I purchased two years ago during a Target clearance. Farmer's markets don't always have what I need and I couldn't run for 180 minutes even if I wanted to. This is my real life.
Now I'm fairly certain I'm not alone, despite how many repins I saw for that homemade granola bar recipe (Oh yea I pinned it too....and no, of course I haven't tried it).
This feeling of shared imperfection inspired me to create a series of posts describing my favorite, real-life things. First up: FOOD!
I love food. I like to know where my food comes from. I enjoy reading ingredients and understanding what they are. I also eat processed foods and feed them to my children. Even the small child. Yep.
I would love to grow everything myself and live off the grid. I don't see it happening for a bit. And even then, I will always need my dear, sweet, succulent Diet Coke. Flaws forgiven, people, flaws forgiven.
So in my mind, the next best thing to being an All-American Organic Farmer is to be an All-American Educated Consumer! We have access to many fantastic products that strike a pretty decent balance between perfect eating and suckin butt.
1. I love this stuff because it has a high protein content with very little sugar. It isn't too sweet and it fills me up.
2. This is my go-to, post-strength-training snack. I'm sure the cows are fed like crap and you're reading the package right, this is not the low-fat variety...but this one tastes better and is worth the additional fat calories. Plus I read somewhere full fat can be good. Or something.
3. The radio told me Diet Coke makes your mouth look like a meth-head's mouth. This inspired me to seek alternate resources for my daily caffeine injection (I do not drink coffee). This is a individually-packaged tea, unsweetened, no calories, no sodium. Just steeped tea leaves, water, and caffeine. Tastes like cold, unsweetened tea. My boss thought it was a bottle of Jack one day so that was a bonus. Comedy with your caffeine. ***Please ignore the large carton of Coke Zero next to the tea. Nothing to see here, people.***
4. I eat two of these a day. It's the only way I feel like a real person. They are 50 calories each... awesome as a snack or as an addition to your breakfast.
5. I shove this stuff in a baggie to maintain a reasonable portion. It is lightly salted to perfection and you don't get a million of those un-popped corn kernels. I eat this instead of chips and don't feel cheated.
6. Are they really organic? Who knows. But I don't have to grow them and the packaging is enough to make me feel better about myself. I eat these whole, raw, and without peeling them. They are quite delicious and I love making my kids laugh by acting like a bunny.
7. Local honey is awesome, bees are awesome, and shockingly, putting this in some Greek yogurt is awesome.
8. These are cheap whole-wheat noodles. If you haven't made the switch to whole wheat I totally recommend it. The benefits are undeniable, the stuff is more readily available than ever, and once you start you'll never go back.
9. Aaron makes the best risotto ever with this rice. I never really liked rice before. I eat this at least twice a week and am obsessed. Super easy prep, he just adds chicken broth, some onions, and stirs it up for a while and then WHAMMO... flavor country.
10. Every now and then I buy a couple of these suckers. They are pretty expensive, but good to have when Aaron is devouring his bone-in KFC. They are low in calories, easy to make, and tasty.
11. I don't shop at Trader Joes. I like to get all my stuff in one, giant, singular trip and Trader Joe's doesn't have everything I want. Buutttt, my in-laws shop there......so as the spoiled daughter in-law, I get these bad boys by default. They are absolutely phenomenal.
12. The next couple items are my favorite picks for kids...kinda. I mean, I eat whatever they don't finish... so in all actuality, this is really just a list of more of my favorite things. I'm not a huge fan of most baby products because I can't read what the hell they put in their products. These "happy people" include some complex things in their ingredients list, but they are vitamins. I can handle vitamin chemicals, man. Annabelle loves these puffs to death. They have a sweet, airy taste.
13. Again, I can read the ingredients...and this stuff is cheap....only fifty cents more than the store's generic brand. Plus the cereal is heart shaped. Sold.
14. I don't want to spoon-feed my 13-month-old anymore. I also don't want to clean up spilled, smelly yogurt. Problem solved.....more from the "happy people."
15. Annie's is the bomb like tic-tic and when you find a sale you pay just a few cents more than the Kraft stuff. Plus Kraft injects toxic coloring into their USA mac-and-cheese. Seriously. Google it. They inject a food colorant that's been banned in Great Britain and other European countries. Seeing as how they have a less corrupted governmental body controlling their food laws, if they care, I care.
16. Good snack. Yummy, cheap, and easy. I included the ingredients on this one so you could see what I was talking about. I can read those. Sold.
17. This isn't for kids, but rather for those who must deal with them. It's delicious and low-calorie (meaning, it has a lower alcohol content). Good with Diet Coke, of course.
18. This last one is to prove I do sometimes go to the farmer's market. Last week I got these peaches, which were delicious, but shipped here from Georgia, because Illinois doesn't have peaches in June. So there you go. I went to a farmer's market to get peaches from Georgia.
There you have it! My favorite foods. I hope a few of them made you realize you don't suck for not growing all your own food and scratch-cooking three meals a day.
I'd love to hear from some of my readers and opened the comments up to the general public (you do not need to create an account). What are some of your favorite standby foods?
