72 hour kits

We used to have 72 hour kits. We got rid of them a while ago. The food that was in them was not food that I would want to put into my body anymore, especially during the first few days of an emergency. When our lives are in chaos is when we need good nutrition the most so that we can deal with the stress better. That being said, I did not replace the food in our 72 hour kits until now. I will just say that all of the earthquakes lately have kicked my butt in gear. So, I started thinking about what I wanted in them. I wanted to make sure I had some good nutritious options that were still going to be easy to carry, that would stay good in storage for at least 6 months and that were not going to need to be cooked. Here is what I came up with:

You probably cannot see everything really well so I will tell you what all is here. There are Annie's Bunny Crackers, Lara Bars, Stretch Island Fruit Leather, Trio Bars, nuts and fruit juice boxes and raisins. There is also a box of gallon size Ziplock bags in this picture. Most of these things are very healthy options. The fruit juice boxes and the crackers are not things that I would normally have in my house because they are not super healthy, but for this situation I have made an exception. They are way healthier then other options out there and they provide some variety.

Now, down to the nitty gritty of what I did! I pre-determined how much food I would like for each meal for three days. I have separated them to show how much food for each meal in the pictures below. Each day is the same for each meal. So, for breakfast we have one Trio bar, one fruit leather, one bunny cracker, one bottle of water. I have also included a jar of Just Barley to mix in with the water to make sure we are getting a lot of good nutrients in our bodies to start the morning out right.
This next picture is what is for lunch. There is a juice box, one raisin, a Lara Bar, and a package of nuts.
Then we have dinner. Water, bunny crackers, fruit leather and another package of nuts.

This picture are the snacks that I have afforded for the day. With boys I figured that we would need some. There is water, a juice box, raisins, fruit leather and yes, a pack of gum which I absolutely hate, but I figured it would keep mouths busy and hopefully keep minds off of hunger. I am sure there is some form of "Healthy" gum out there, but I didn't take the time to research that before I got this together. That will be a job for when I rotate my food.

So, here is a picture of all the meals laid out so you can see all the food together. There is not a whole lot of variety. You could make more variety but this is what worked for me right now. I think it will be plenty of food to keep us sustained for a few days in case of an emergency. It will for sure give us more nutrients then the junk food I had in our kits before.

This last picture is what it looked like all packaged up after I had it separated out. I stuffed it all into a gallon bag to help keep it safe and fresh. I originally had each days food in a different bag, but decided to combine some of it for the sake of room. It does take up more room then it did when I had all junk food, but that is ok with me.
I plan on rotating it every 6 months. Some of the food will last a year, so I will only rotate what needs to be replaced. We will eat the food I take out and we will put new fresh food in. For my family of 5 it cost about $120.00 for this supply. That is way more then I normally spend for three days worth of food, but I now have peace of mind that my family will be taken care of in an emergency.

Vacation!

We just got back from vacation to California! We went to Disneyland and Sea World. It was so much fun! I was really worried however because I knew that we would need some healthy things to eat. I wasn't about to pay for food at Disneyland or Sea World, one because of the cost and two because I knew that if we did, we would all be sick by the end of the trip. The problem was, that you couldn't bring meals into the parks. Snacky things were ok however. So, I planned snacks very carefully what we would take with us that would be more sustainable like a meal. I thought I would post some of the things we took with us.

I made some Candied Almonds and some Teriyaki Almonds. These are recipes that I got from Greensmoothiegirl.com. I don't want to post them here because I don't have the copyright to them, but you can go to her site to get the recipe. They are AWESOME! They are so healthy because they have been sprouted and dehydrated. The really great thing is that they taste great and are very filling.

I also made some sprouted pumpkin seeds.

I soaked the raw pumpkin seeds in water for about 4 hours. Then drained them and soaked them in Bragg's Liquid Aminos for about 30 min. I drained off the extra liquid and put them in my dehydrator on Teflex sheets on 105 degrees for about 12 hours. Then I took them off the Teflex sheets and dehydrated them for about 6 more hours or until dry. They turned out so yummy!

My sister gave me this next idea. I wanted to have some kind of granola that would be easy to eat. My sister said that she just makes her granola and then adds a little more water to it and rolls them into balls before she cooks them. I call them granola balls.


I tried this and it turned out perfectly. I used Tammie's recipe from simplehealthytasty.blogspot.com for her oatmeal cookie granola. You can use any recipe really, but that one is very easy. All the kids loved them!

I also brought in some of my favorite fruit leather. I was going to make some, but ran out of time, so I bought the Stretch Island Fruit Leather from Costco.
I also bought some Bora Bora bars from there, which we LOVE!
Lastly, we took in some broccoli, carrots and pea pods. It really did sustain us well.

I also took with me my Just Barley powder to drink in the mornings since I wouldn't have my green smoothies.

It doesn't taste great like my smoothies, but I was getting my greens that I really needed! My friend Tammie told me the other day that she like to mix it with tomato juice and it tastes just like V8 that way. I am excited to try that!

After a week of the same foods we did get tired of some of it and we needed some other foods. I tried to make as good of choices as I could, but unfortunately we still got sick. I didn't have a good bowel movement all week and it wasn't until I was home for two days that I got some relief. Luke has had a horrible runny nose and Travis just hasn't felt well. We will get back into the swing of things and be better soon. There sure is something to be said for good home cooked healthy foods!

But how do I do it?

I have been talking to a lot of people lately about health and nutrition. My clients usually ask me questions, my friends and sometimes my family. I have also been teaching a series of classes in my ward on healthy eating habits. With out question I always get asked, "But how do I do it?". I guess I asked this myself when I first started changing our eating habits. So, to help people figure out how to start I have made a list of some common reasons that make it hard to make changes in hopes that it will help you on your journey.

1. We think that our kids/husband do not need to also change eating habits so we are doing it all by ourselves.

- One thing that is important to remember is that we all need to eat healthy. If your spouse or kids are not showing signs of sickness or weight problems, that does not mean that they don’t need to eat healthy. Eating unhealthy as children, leads to bad habits and addiction. These habits will affect your kids health as adults. Teaching your kids now how and what to eat will make it so that they will not be in the same position that many adults are in now. That is, we have to undo years of addiction to sugar, salt, additives and unhealthy fats that are causing our health problems and weight issues.

-You really need to have the right frame of mind. This is really hard. Think about why you want to eat healthy. Is it just to lose weight, is it so that you will stay slim, or is it to be healthy? There is a big difference. If it is to be healthy then it will be easier not only for you, but also your family, to make a life style change. Studying the body and how certain foods affect the body really helped me to understand what I was doing to myself every time I ate something, good or bad.

2. We think that our kids/husband will not eat the food.

- Our families and ourselves may very well not like the food at first. If we are not use to it, then we will have a harder time with it. Because there are so many addictive substances in many of the foods we eat, when we take those out, our body doesn’t like the food. We have to give our bodies time to change. As we keep trying new things our tastes will eventually change and we will love the food. Same with our kids. If we just give something to them once, and never try again, then they will never develop a taste for it.

- Another thing to do is to make sure that you are making changes slowly. Decide what things you would like to change about your diet to make it healthier. Make a list. Then, decide what is most important for your family and do that first. You can choose a category like dairy or sugar to eliminate, or you can choose to just incorporate more veggies. Or, you can choose to start with dinner or breakfast and make sure that that meal is always as healthy as it can be. Make just one change a month and soon your family won’t even realize that you are eating healthier. Our rule right now, because we are still in transition after 1 ½ years, is that we eat super good at home and when we are eating other places we do the best we can. I don’t tell my kids what to eat when we are at other places. I let them choose if they want meat, or a cookie. I try to talk to them about their choices before we eat, but once they are getting their food, I leave it alone. It is not worth fighting over.

- Make food fun. Get creative with how it looks. Make something like Ratatouille (which can be very healthy) and then watch the movie after. Let your kids help make the food. They will want to at least try the creation that they put so much work into.

- Talk to your kids about why you are having them eat certain things. Kids are not too young to understand that sugar makes you tired so that you don’t have energy to play with friends, or that soda makes your bones weak and break, or that veggies make you grow taller. My boys love beans because they know that it makes their muscles bigger. We often have muscle flexing contests at dinner to see how much our muscles have grown after we have eaten our food. Kids need to know why they are being asked to eat certain things and why they should not eat others. It also helps them to make better choices when they are alone or when they grow up because they have the information.

3. We look at meals the wrong way.

- I use to have this image in my head of what dinner was. A meat, a veggie (usually canned) and a carbohydrate. I really struggled with changing how we ate until I got it out of my head that that is not what a meal had to look like. After I got good at dinner, I had to work on lunch. Lunch did not have to be chicken nuggets, hot dogs, mac and cheese or pb&j with fruit on the side. That is what was easy and what it was always like for me growing up, so naturally, that was the picture in my head. After changing, in my head, what a healthy meal looked like, I was able to move forward with what I wanted my healthy meals to be.

- Breakfast (or lunch or dinner) foods do not have to be what we normally perceive as such. If you want to have something that traditionally you would have for lunch or dinner, then do it! As long as your body is getting the nutrients it needs who cares what time of day it is.

4. The healthy food doesn’t taste as good as the other food

- Again, this comes back to the food additives that are in the food. They do taste better to us because we are addicted to them. Be patient and your tastes will change.

5. Eating Healthy is too expensive.

- In some ways eating healthy is more expensive. If you are buying prepackaged “health” foods then it is always more expensive. If you choose to buy organic, it will be more expensive. If you are eating whole foods and make foods from scratch, then often times it is less expensive. As you start making some things, eliminating foods, or cutting back on foods that are not so good for you, you will have more money to spend on whole foods. Decide what foods are worth keeping in your life and which ones you can let go, or eat less of. Decide what is worth your time to make. Then start buying foods that are healthy with the money that you save.

- You will also notice that as you are eating healthier you will eat less. Because you are filling your body with nutrients and not just fluff, you will stay full. Additionally, if you are not eating foods that are addictive you will not crave them, therefore you will spend less (or none) on junk type foods.

- Another way to look at it is that the money you spend now, will be an investment in the future. Eating healthier now means less money spent on prescriptions and doctors visits in the future. Neither my boys, my Husband or myself have been to the doctor for over a year for sickness. We have not had to fill any prescriptions. That money adds up when you are paying co-pays. Look back at the money that you paid to the doctors office over the last year and even if you just took half of that, think about how much good food you could buy with it.

6. It takes too much time. It is not convenient.

- I will not argue with this. It does take more time to cook things from scratch then to just go to the store and buy them. This is a trade off, that you will have to decide for yourself, if it is worth it to you. For me, I would rather spend a little more time in the kitchen and know that I am feeding my family the best that I can. That brings me peace of mind. Also, I kind of look at it the same way I do with the money aspect of it. If I spend more time in the kitchen, I will spend less time in the doctors’ office.

- As you get better at living the lifestyle you choose to live, you will find ways that make it easier and take less time. My friend put it this way, “It is becoming more convenient the more I use different things that I hadn't used before. Just like when you start learning about whole wheat you have to learn how to use it, and then it becomes easy.”

7. Ignorance or lack of knowledge

- Lack of knowledge makes eating right scary. So, educate yourself! Do research, ask questions, and most importantly pray for understanding as to what is best for you and your family. The only people that can tell you what is right for you is, you and Heavenly Father. If you are having a health issue that you would like to be rid of, research what foods affect it and help it, and then pray about it. If you would like to prevent something, do the same.