original food weekly meal plan #1

Many of you have requested menu plans and recipes that we are using for the original food diet, and so I'm excited to post them for you today! :D {I've got quite a few recipes to give you over the next few weeks if I can get to them! :P}

Now that the whole family is on the diet, cooking has been easier and surprisingly, cheaper. We no longer have the need to buy bread and sandwich meat and chips for the kids in addition to what we are eating on the plan. While the savings is good, I think the best thing about this way of eating now is that I can make really large portions of easy foods at one time, and we can eat them throughout the week, for both lunch and dinner.

super easy veggie chili

It's been such a huge change for us, because we spend so much less on groceries now that we have found what we like to eat the most: a starch paired with a veggie or legume.

Beans and rice are dirt cheap: pinto beans at Sams are .89 per pound, and the rice we like to eat {basmati} is .78 per pound. I make 2-3 lbs. of each at a time, and it lasts us for several meals, which saves me so much time in the kitchen. 

Since we are eating so cheaply for the main dishes, we can more easily afford to buy organic foods, lots of apples and fruit, and natural peanut butter. Eating simply changes both the time and money I spend on food. 

I was thinking of the families that have been eating for as long as the world has been in existence- simplicity had to be key in preparing foods in the past because food was chosen from only was available locally {to some degree}. 

It seems that only recently we've decided we need multiple different foods in every meal. We have the luxury of changing what we eat nearly every single meal, but is that really helpful to us? Or does it really just keep us going back to the store or going out to eat constantly? {Have you thought about it this way before too? Or is the diet getting to my thinking? ha!}

It's definitely good to have variety for the sake of our health, but I'm really starting to think we've overloaded ourselves with cooking and shopping because of our desire for 7-10 different food items each day. Simple is actually a very good thing when it comes to food, and I never realized that until the last few weeks. 

This week I spent $84 on groceries {$8 of that was on avocados alone! sheesh}, and I bought a pineapple, 6 lbs. of bananas, 5 lbs. of frozen strawberries, 5 lbs. of asian stir fry veggies, oranges, 3 lbs. of organic baby carrots, 14 lbs of potatoes, and lots of kinds of lettuce, onions, and cilantro.

Here's what we are eating this week. I'm trying to reuse the same ingredients over two days so that I can make the most of my time in the kitchen. :)

night 1: beans and rice
night 2: veggie chili and rice {recipe coming soon!}
night 3: fajita salad: peppers and onions with rice and homemade salsa on a bed of lettuce and guacamole
night 4: baked potatoes and homemade salsa + guacamole
night 5: asian stir fry veggies with rice
night 6: roasted red potatoes, green beans, and salad
night 7: dinner out or leftovers

lunch {choose one or two}:
veggie chili and rice
baby carrots and hummus, pineapple
baked potatoes
salad w/black beans and rice
apples and peanut butter {no sugar}
"bean" dip and carrots

breakfast:
stove-top oatmeal w/ stevia and/or maple syrup, bananas, or fruit
homemade granola cereal
pumpkin sauce

snacks:
apples
bananas
fresh stove-popped popcorn w/ nutritional yeast
peanuts
walnuts
energy mix - raw rolled oats, honey, peanut butter

Oh, and I did eat a cinnamon roll last Friday and it was amazing! Thankfully, I didn't even get a headache! 

Thank you sweet Noah, for turning 7! {and choosing cinnamon rolls!} :) He's precious and generous. He's been saving a piece of Easter candy as a surprise for his daddy after he gets off his diet! He's just like that. :D Precious.


Do you have a generous little one like that? Does it melt your heart too? :)