Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Eating Healthy

Reese was fully on breast milk for 6 months. I introduced organic cereal and foods after that. I have always ensured that Reese's food is healthy and nutritious. After his 1st birthday, he started to consume some table food. Reese was a fussy eater and only took western food until the age of 2+ was he willing to eat Chinese food! 

Then I started to slack.... between age 4 and 5, Reese took a lot of fast food and outside food like McDonalds and noodles from hawker stalls. I felt bad and started to reduce outside food. Reese has learned to take more vegetables. I am happy. Thank God he loves fruits. From young he would take a lot of fruits daily. Since last year, I started making juices for the whole family and try to get them to take nuts, seeds and even green juice. Hopefully we will continue to do so! Reese has been healthy and has not fallen sick for the past year.... we do not take supplements and prefer getting them from our food. :)

Here are some of the regular juices and food Reese takes:

1 Dragon fruit, 1big banana, 6 strawberries, 2-3 tablespoons of yogurt, 1 cup of milk, 1 teaspoon of chia seed per glass. Blend everything together and yields 3 glasses of smoothie. 

 2 Pomegranate, 3 oranges, 1 grapefruit, 2 tangerines, 3 carrots. Juice them.

This is a great combination and it taste quite good. Beetroot, strawberries, oranges and carrots. :)

 
Breakfast - Dragon fruit, grapes, walnuts, flax seed and strawberry yogurt

This is also a great combination, grapes, strawberries, banana and blueberry yogurt. Do add chia seeds and some nuts.

Reese do not snack on biscuits or junk food, I always pack fruits for snacks. Grapes and banana are great when you are outside.

Stews are great because it has lots of vegetables! :) This is lamb stew with brown rice. Very easy to make. You need lamb cubes, vegetables of your choice, beef/chicken stock, onions and garlic, bacon, thyme and bay leaves and salt and pepper to taste. Coat lamb cubes in with flour and lightly brown them, fry bacon until crisp, fry onions and garlic. Put meat, onion and garlic into stock and cook for an hour then add vegetables and herbs and cook for another 40 minutes or until vegetables are soft.

Brown rice porridge. Chicken stock, carrots, potatoes, onions, leeks and mince pork/chicken (sometimes I will use roasted pork. It taste even better!). So simple and healthy. Reese doesn't like to take soup and this is one way to get him to take some!

Healthy muffins, I used unbleached flour, less brown sugar and butter. My recipe for banana muffins: 3 ripe bananas, 1 egg, two 1inch cube butter (melted), 1 teaspoon vanilla essence, 1.5 cups flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 cup milk, a little less than half cup brown sugar. Mix mashed bananas, egg, butter, vanilla essence and milk together. Mix all dried ingredients together and gradually mixed it with the wet ingredients. Then put the mixture into the baking tray and bake it for 15 to 20 minutes at 190 degrees. You can add some nuts and chia/flax seeds.... 


**It is important to have a juicer and blender that are easy to clean. It motivates you to juice or make smoothies daily! For smoothies, it takes less than 10 minutes for me to prepare and 5 minutes to wash. Juices, 10 mins to prepare and less than 10 minutes to wash. Chia seeds has no taste when added to juices or yogurt. It is a superfood bursting with nutrients. It is crunchy like kiwi fruit seeds. Do try!

I love making 1 pot meals because I can add lots of vegetables and save a lot of time and washing up too! :)