Whole 30, Day 31: The Journey Up Until Now

We did it. We finished 30 days of clean eating, reset our taste buds and we are ready to figure out how different foods affect our bodies. I'll go over my thoughts over the whole process at the end of the post, but here are some of the new recipes that I tried this week. 

Nopales (Cactus), Bacon and Egg with Avocado

Having the luxury of just heating up hot dogs was a nice reprieve from
having to cook another meat dish.

Sometimes food that looks like a snowman tastes better. (And it's more enticing to try) Can you spot the veggie that I was trying to get her to try? 

Sugarless cranberry sauce is not so good by itself, but with meat, it's scrumptious.
I don't even miss the sugar! 

The kids preferred the green stuff blended for the frittata. If I left the leaves whole,
I would find random strands of spinach underneath the plate rim. 

Prosciutto, pear and greens was surprisingly delicious.
The kids prefer ham. Fine, more for me.  

Whole 30 compliant pumpkin pie. I know, it doesn't follow the "spirit" of the program, but it's Thanksgiving and the kids worked so hard to break down the pumpkin for the pie. I used raisins and sweet potato to give the pie a little bit of sweetness and used the egg to make it souffle like. 

The rest of the meal was uber compliant. Lots of veggies, roasted lamb, and fancy "curly" potatoes that Hailey helped make. 

We shared the things we were thankful for, ate the meal and felt good. Since the pie was "healthy" I actually let the kids each have a slice for snack and then we finished the rest after dinner. 

Left-over veggies + over easy eggs = easy breakfast. 

I wanted to make hotpot but couldn't find any compliant chinese meatballs. Most of them contain MSG and sugar, so I decided to make my own. Everyone likes them better than the store bought ones. 

I am now a master at making crispy skin seared salmon! 

I used our homemade mayonnaise to make my grandmother's potato salad. It's the only way I'll eat potato salad. Potato, egg, apple (don't knock it until you try it), cooked carrots, peas) 

The build your own hamburger meal was the kids' favorite this week. 

Hailey randomly requested fish balls and again, after not being able to find compliant fish balls, I decided to make my own and I found that they are so easy to make! I'm going to try to make salmon fish balls next week. 

On day 30 for dinner we had hot pot, which is whole 30 compliant. The only thing I added was tofu (which was going to be reintroduced today anyways). 

We all enjoyed the meal and the kids definitely appreciated the novelty of the tofu (it's one of their favorite foods and after a month of no tofu, they savored each bite). I asked everyone that evening and even the next morning if they felt any different. Everyone said that they felt normal. I do feel like my stomach felt a bit bloated and gassy. It wasn't uncomfortable, but noticeable. 

The next morning I made soymilk. I had soaked the beans overnight, steamed them this morning and blended them up with water, adding a couple of dates in each batch. 

It was good, but a bit on the gritty side. I quickly remedied it by simply adding more water to the mixture and it tasted more like the stuff you buy from the asian grocery stores. The stuff you buy from the American stores just tastes off and chemical-y. 

I also made Hailey's favorite: Popeye's coleslaw. I found a copycat recipe and most of it was compliant except for the sugar. I actually used store bought mayo for this recipe since it had soybean oil and today was legume day and I cut the sugar that I put into the recipe by a fourth. She loved it and gobbled it up. 

After dinner, I ate a scoop of peanut butter and found it to be sooooo sweet. It felt like I was tasting a Reece's peanut butter cup. I don't remember it being that sweet, but I guess my taste buds have adjusted.

I've been feeling like my pants have been a bit looser, so I stepped on the scale and found that I had lost 4-5 pounds. (We have an old school spring scale, so it's not super exact). After the 4 pounds that Steve lost the first week, he has not gained or lost any weight. Nathan lost 2 pounds (not what we wanted) and Hannah wasn't interested in seeing how much she weighed. Hailey gained a pound, but that could just be due to normal kid growth. 

So far, this experience has helped us all have a better relationship with food. The kids are more willing and open to trying new veggies and most of the time they like it. Since we have been cooking from scratch a whole lot and we've been processing the food ourselves (instead of buying things pre-shredded or pre-riced to save money) the kids have learned a lot about food prep. 

Hailey still likes the idea of cooking veggies more than eating them, but she at least will try. 

The kids are now more confident to find and prepare healthy snacks when they are hungry. 

And Hailey can even peel carrots and potatoes! 

I've been pretty lucky with finding recipes that I think would be a big hit with the kids, but sometimes I will get this face. I haven't served you guys anything that inedible, so I've been making you have a little bit of it at least and then you can grab some frozen peas and hard boiled egg. 

 One time I accidentally bought 10 dozen eggs (I know, who does this? I was meaning to only buy 5, but 2 packs were stuck together) and we went through that in about 10 days. We eat so much eggs, but oddly, are not sick of it yet. I'm due to go in for a blood draw, so I'm going to go see if all this bacon, meat and eggs that we've been eating affected my cholesterol or not. I'll be sure to report back soon. 

So going forward, we will go back to clean eating for 2 days and then we will introduce oatmeal, rice and corn. After 2 days of clean eating, we will try hard cheese, yogurt, soft cheese, milk, spread over a week with a day or so in between. 

After figuring out dairy, we will then move onto glutenous foods. 

Hailey has been reacting to raw tomato and fruits. She will form a rash around her mouth immediately after eating. We don't think this happens with cooked tomato because the homemade ketchup that she drinks by the jar doesn't seem to cause the rash. I think at some point, we are going to try to figure that out too. 

Well, that's about it for now. I'll update in a week with any reactions.