The Journey to Cooking Healthy

Mar 21, 2017

When I was growing up, healthy eating wasn't really a "thing" in our home. I grew up in the 90's and my parent's both worked 60+ hours each during my growing up years. I don't remember my mom making meal plans or planning out what we were going to eat. Most of our meals were usually things that were thrown together from what we had in the pantry and fridge. The majority of our meals consisted of a meat, a canned vegetable, and a box of mac n' cheese.

Fast forward to my twenties... when my husband and I moved out on our own, I was grossly under prepared to feed us. Don't get me wrong, I could make basic meals, but we often relied on his skill set for anything that didn't come in a box. My mamaw taught me how to make a handful of dishes, so those were my specialty. For the majority of our first few years out on our own, Mr Beau did most of the cooking, and would teach me along the way.

There were a few major turning points in my journey to learning how to cook...

The first was with my mentor Mrs. C. After I gave birth to my first child, little belle, we started attending a new church. Mrs C saw my desire to grow as a wife and mom, and so she took me under her wing and shared both bible truths and her love of cooking with me. We were there for a year before we moved. When we moved to North Carolina, she continued to mentor me. The first few things she taught me were how to cook a whole chicken, how to make biscuits from scratch, and how to make home-made lasagna. By giving me a few simple meals to make, she grew my confidence and help me overcome my fear of messing up meals. That propelled me into trying new recipes. Wednesdays in our home has become our days for new recipes. Mr Beau was THRILLED with my newfound love of cooking and eternally grateful to Mrs. C for teaching me!

The next turning point was my first year of mom group. It was there that we had a lesson called Help! My family needs to eat! The speaker that day shared lots of great tips for how to plan out meals for our families and even shared some recipes. I had meal planned before and did okay with it, but I wasn't diligent. At the season of life when this lesson came along, it gave me the encouragement I needed to try again.

Once I learned how to cook home-made meals, I realized that it's actually not super difficult. It's actually pretty easy! So the next turning point for me was that I really wanted to eat HEALTHY! That meant becoming diligent about what we were putting into our bodies. When you have children, your life changes, and you'll do more for them than you'll ever do for yourself. Until recent years, I had always been a picky eater. Once I became a mom, I realized that in order to feed my children well, I needed to start eating better myself. While we did begin to eat better, what we were wasn't truly healthy foods. So from there, I began to research about clean eating, whole foods, and what is best for our bodies. I still feel like I've only skimmed the surface of that, and so I want to share what I am learning with you as I go!