Making Time for Healthy Eating

One of my biggest challenges as a single parent is serving healthy meals. I think a lot of us get so caught up in the fast-food lifestyle that a decent, home-cooked meal becomes only a distant memory before we know it.

Fortunately, my family actually eats very little fast food, particularly because my tween is a vegetarian and doesn't want to get near a burger joint. Unfortunately, I've taken a more expensive, even more fattening route and gotten into a restaurant lifestyle.

Hey, I work hard, my kids already make enough of a mess without adding food and dishes into the mix, and I deserve it, right?

For the longest time, I thought I was treating myself nicely by allowing this luxury. Us parents are supposed to spoil ourselves a little - take care of us in addition to taking care of everyone else.

But I recently read something that changed my pattern of thinking. It said that cooking yourself a healthy meal is one of the best ways to treat yourself well. You're saying, "I deserve a little time and effort, I need to nourish my body and soul."

I've decided I do deserve this, but I still haven't found a time fairy to wave her magic wand and give me an extra hour a day. So I started looking for help, and I recently discovered a franchise called Dinner My Way.

My older daughter and I go online to view their menu of the month, which includes nutritional information and cooking directions for various dinners (and sometimes other meals) that we can purchase, along with the pricing.

These dinners (priced around $20) serve six, so our family of three can easily get two meals out of each, for about $10, which is less than I would pay eating out.

We pick out meals that are relatively healthy, or at least easy to modify, and simple to cook. The fun part is that we get to schedule a little mother-daughter time by heading to the "store" at a designated time and assembling our meals.

There are little "stations" that list the ingredients, which have already been washed, cut up, etc., and we get to work filling ziploc bags or foil tins with two cups of this and one teaspoon of that. Then we head home and put the tins and bags into our freezer with little labels that say exactly how to cook it.

Because we assemble them, we have control over how much salt goes into the meals, and we split a dinner like Hearty Taco Soup into two bags - one with meat and one without. My daughter is also excited to come home and try a new meal that she helped prepare.

I also invested in a crock pot, which makes it easy to pour in one of the ziploc bags, set on low, and have a wonderful smelling house to come home to.

We usually serve an extra helping of vegetables, often those Birds Eye Steam Fresh frozen veggies that you can microwave right in the bag they came in. This way, I can sometimes stretch the meal into an extra lunch for me too.

Obviously we can't afford to eat like this every night, so we still have our cheaper spaghetti meals mixed in there. And I still allow one meal to be eaten out per week. But we are on a better path now, and we are pretty excited about "spoiling" ourselves this way.