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a day in the life . . .


Robyn Openshaw - Feb 17, 2008 - This Post May Contain Affiliate Links


Q:   Dear GreenSmoothieGirl, I’m trying to figure out what to feed my family, now that we’re committed to eating right, so I’m wondering what your family eats every day.   Could you just give me like  a “day in the life . . .”?

A: Sure.   It’s not that this is the ultimate or the only, but it works for us because I *adore* the pink smoothie  and the granola gives my kids the high calories and good fats they need.   (I don’t need/want as many  calories as they do!)   I do sometimes eat the granola instead, especially if I’ve made the Live Granola in the recipe collection, which I love.    

Breakfast:

 

Kids: Kefir made from raw goat milk, blended with bananas, in a glass

              plus

              Granola (in recipe collection) with sunflower and alfalfa/clover sprouts added, served with either raw goat milk or rice milk (Rice Dream brand)

 

Me: Hot-Pink Breakfast Smoothie, 400-500 calories, 9-10% protein

[Note: I’ve been adding a little kefir, and a tablespoon of plant-based protein to increase the protein by several grams.   That’s not because I think I need more protein, because I don’t (see Myth 1, part 2).   It’s because other people think THEY do, so I’ve been trying out uses for pea and hemp protein for my readers, which is so much better than whey or soy protein powders.]

 

Weekends: whole-grain waffles, pancakes, German pancakes, etc. (lots of recipes in Step 10, coming up towards the end of the year for 12 Steps to Whole Foods subscribers)

 

Lunch:

 

Kids: whole-grain sandwich, fruit, vegetable (oranges, apples, carrots, celery, baby bell peppers, etc.)

 

Me: soaked/dehydrated almonds, flax crackers, up to 1 quart green smoothie

 

After-school snack:

 

Kids: green smoothie, plus sandwich or toast or popcorn or flax crackers or sprouted/crunchy snack (whatever they get themselves from what I have on hand)

Me: the rest of my green smoothie, if I didn’t already drink it all

 

 

Dinner:

 

1. Big green/vegetable/raw salad with homemade dressing

 

2. Plant-based hot dish–soups, quinoa dishes, legume/rice/grain/vegetable dishes, etc.  

 

[Note: I’m about to post new recipe collections for Plant-Based Main Dishes, as well as Sprouted,  Live  Snacks.   12 Step subscribers will get  ALL of this stuff already, but  collections will be available with my very best, tested recipes for others.   My goal with the main dishes is to keep meat lovers happy with hearty, substantive dishes.   Most of the recipes are a “complete protein,” and they don’t rely on soy.   An upcoming Myth in the Nutrition Manifesto will deal with the controversy of soy, so make sure you’re subscribed to my e-letter.]

 

3. Occasionally some homemade warm cornbread or sourdough bread, too (Ch.  9 of 12 Steps)

 

4. Sometimes we have a treat like dried fruit, a grapefruit, or one of the healthy desserts in Step 11 (butter-pecan ice cream, chocolate pudding, coconut macaroons or coconut brownies, cherry-almond blondies with  cream sauce, cookies—oh, you 12 Steppers have some fun to look forward to!).

Posted in: 12 Steps To Whole Food, Green Smoothies, Lifestyle, Recipes, Relationships, Whole Food

8 thoughts on “a day in the life . . .”

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  1. http:// says:

    What kind of sandwiches do you send in your kids’ lunches? I have a hard time imagining you sending sandwiches made with sugared jelly or meat and cheese.

    Also, when you make whole-grain waffles or pancakes etc… I’m guessing you put pure maple syrup on top. Do you have any alternatives for that since to maple syrup since it’s so high in calories?

  2. http:// says:

    Steffanie, I’m boring with sandwiches. My kids love organic peanut butter with honey (or all-fruit jam). You’re right, no meat-n-cheese, and regular jam only when I get lazy. Sometimes it’s not a sandwich, but rather a big slab of whole-grain sourdough bread with butter or olive oil and herbs, or a big whole-grain sourdough pretzel—my kids LOVE that. (These recipes are in the Basic recipe collection.) I’ve been making Sourdough Dill Bread, with and without rye, for school lunches lately (a 12 Step recipe I’ve been working on).

    I do put pure maple syrup on waffles and pancakes, but in my Breakfast recipe collection (about to go live on my site in the next couple of days), I have three recipes for toppings for waffles/pancakes. One of them is all raw, one of them is mostly raw, and all three are lower in calories and sugar than maple syrup.

    Also, most people drench their pancakes in a pool of fake maple syrup made from corn syrup. (I’m getting a headache just THINKING about eating that.) We put only a couple of tablespoons of real maple drizzled on ours, because we aren’t used to lots of sweetener, so it tastes great to us. We also put lots of no-sugar-added natural applesauce on waffles, so we still have plenty of stuff on top. Everybody in my house loves that. Also we use peanut butter as a topping sometimes, but of course you’re not going to like that if you’re counting calories. 🙂

    Robyn

  3. http:// says:

    Hi Roby, my daughter is a high level gymnast and works out about do you think that she would need any difference in diet as a normal person? I know your kids are probably pretty active. Do you think that she should be eating a diet similar to theirs? I know somewhere i read that gymnasts should not have as much fat in their diets as people in other sports, but I really don’t know what is right out their anymore!

  4. http:// says:

    sorry i didnt proofread! she works out about 20 hours a week!

    thanks!

  5. http:// says:

    My three oldest are on comp teams in their sports, and the youngest is chomping at the bit for his shot to try out, next year. Some of them work out 20 hours per week, too, 3 seasons a year. So I’m with you!

    They eat an obscene amount of food. Your daughter is very lean, like most gymnasts? My advice to you is to let her eat as much as she wants, make sure it has enough good, unrefined fat. Kids who eat lots of whole plant foods and don’t eat processed food may eat a LOT.

    I disagree with low-fat diets, ESPECIALLY for athletes–love the RAVE diet except for his recommendation to keep fats below 10%. That’s unnatural. I have counted my kids’ calories for breakfast using DietPower, and some of them eat a 1,000-calorie breakfast–a HUGE bowl of granola and sprouted seeds, plus kefir made from whole goat milk and a banana. (And they’re sneaking their lunch out of their desks before noon, the teachers have told me.) All my kids are very lean. Their calorie consumption tapers off and is lower at night.

    Your daughter is amassing bone density (an important developmental task at her age) and burning tons of calories, and I’d be more worried about her getting not enough than too much. Wherever you read that about fats, I wouldn’t worry about it. The low-fat voices are going to mostly go away in the coming years, in the face of compelling research that fats are good. You can trust that a diet rich in vegs/fruits/whole grains/legumes/nuts/seeds is naturally calorie-controlled and not too high in fat. 🙂

    Robyn

  6. http:// says:

    Thank you so much! This is very helpfull. I wish the best for you and your kids in their sports in the comming year!

  7. Anonymous says:

    Robyn,

    I’m 34 and have always been super-skinny, but NOT because I want to be. I want to start lifting weights to put on some muscle, and I was wondering: how can I eat healthy and put ON weight?

    1. Robyn Openshaw says:

      Rachel, when your body absorbs minerals appropriately, AND you are eating good nutrition, you tend to find your healthy weight. I can’t prove it, but my observation from talking to thousands of people–and hundreds of underweight people—is that they are flip sides of the same coin. (I believe Dr. Robert O. Young also writes about this.) In other words, of the 30% of Americans who are underweight, many of them are actually not digesting food and are quite unhealthy. They might be eating as much junk as the overweight people are, but because of chronic gut issues, they are not absorbing nutrition, even calories. Eat healthy exactly like I’m teaching. If you want to boost protein, do it with SunWarrior protein powder, and high-protein unprocessed plant foods like legumes and nuts, not animal products. If you want to boost fat, do it with avocadoes, nuts, seeds, and unprocessed oils like coconut oil, EVOO, etc.

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