MEAL PLANNING FOR ONE & FAMILY

It’s a food journey really. How I got into mealing for me plus the family. It started not long ago actually and it was a response to poor health. I wouldn’t look it, but I’m pretty sure there was something off about my diet. I suffered from migraines (and really I still do), and I just had had enough. I needed to find a solution. I chose the alternative path. Like everything else in my life, I tread the path less popular, less tradition, and with mixed results. I began with the book Eat Right For Your Blood Type. I ordered blood type kits from Amazon and tested myself, my husband and all my kids. Though I already knew my blood type, I used my results as the ‘control’ test. Testing my kids was for multiple reasons. First, I didn’t know their blood type, so that information was good to have, and also, I was tired of my children’s food choices. I knew from experience, that you must be cautious of encouraging that your kids eat certain food. I learned that the hard way when unknowingly, I was feeding my toddler son food he was allergic to. My child knew intuitively, but I thought, “eggs are good for you, you should eat them.” Breaks my heart to know I was hurting him with the food I made him. Breaks my heart today that he, at 15, makes food choices I’m not happy with. I decided, “I’ll let the book decide!” Maybe the Blood Type diet will reveal that the reason he doesn’t hardly eat any vegetable and no fruit is because he’s intolerant to them because of his blood type. I’ll let the book parent him, and all my kids. Now, I’ll know when my kids turn their noses up at food, it may be because they are intuitively avoiding that food for a deeper reason. The results were in. Our family is split with three of us, my 6-year-old daughter, 15-year-old son and myself, being type O and the rest of the family B. How does that break down? Us type O’s should avoid dairy and grains. Yay!! It’s the way I feel like eating anyway! What a relief and reassurance it was to discover that what I intuitively wanted was what was good for me! Now I cook for myself just what I always wanted and needed without feeling guilty that I’m not having those other ‘healthy’ food like yogurt and kefir for their calcium and probiotics. I’ll get them elsewhere. It’s not to say I avoid those food as if I’m allergic, I just avoid them naturally and occasionally have them if I really want them. How has this affected the rest of the family? Well my type B children and husband can enjoy all the healthy dairy they want without me thinking they should avoid it. What about meat? Turns out we type O’s need it. But with meat comes other restrictions. Meat is acidic, so I need to reduce other food that are acidic because I am having so much more meat than say the Type A’s and Type AB’s.

So what do I eat? I love chicken salad. I could have salad every day! Though I usually have a simple salad of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and red onions, topped with grilled chicken, tossed in a homemade dressing made of apple cider vinegar and olive oil, I also like the occasional Caesar Salad.

These days it’s grilled veggies and red meat.

I grilled an entire portion (a large one!) on a square grill pan. It’s super easy actually, I grab a handful of zucchini and yellow square, a handful of red, green and jalapeno peppers, a small handful of mushrooms, about 10 spears of asparagus and about 4 oz of red meat. I grill everything for about 6-10 minutes (I put the meat on last) and season everything with salt and pepper while drizzling olive oil over everything. I have that meal with a size of cherry tomatoes seasoned with olive oil and salt.

What are the kids eating? Here are a few of our favorite meals shared with us from dear friends. Moroccan couscous is a fall favorite and Persian food is a year round favorite. We like to diversify with recipes found in educational books, too!

Our main meal is generally lunch, and as a homeschooling family, that’s easy to achieve. We’ll break from homeschool around noon to prepare lunch. While the kids eat around 12:30 or 1pm, I prefer to eat a little bit later. Dinner is either left overs from lunch or a light meal.

Please check out the other lovely ladies who are participating in this meal planning collaboration started by Gemma over at Our Muslim Homeschool.

Meal Planning for Ramadan + FREE Printable

One thought on “MEAL PLANNING FOR ONE & FAMILY

  1. I came here via your YouTube channel (love it).

    Was looking for your recipe book (wanted to make scones from your Ramadan video). Are you able to share the recipes?

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