Changing it up!

My family and I are embarking on a new adventure- one focused on food and getting healthy/healthier. Walking through the aisles of your local grocery store it's amazing to me the mass amounts of processed foods that exist. I am not sure who to credit with saying this (perhaps it's been said so many times now it doesn't matter) but it's true what they say- stay on the outer rim of the store and your body will thank you! I used to appreciate it when a new grocery store was built near me, especially when it was bigger than the ones around it. More food! Now I realize that although there is more food within the brick and mortar, there's also a whole lot more processed foods in there. Just what Americans need, right?!

Here are the changes my family and I want to make:

 Cutting out processed foods
I would love to say that we were going to cut 100% of the processed foods out of lives, but in reality we aren't ready to make that kind of commitment yet. My hopes are to keep our diets around 75% or more whole foods and 25% or less processed foods. Don't get me wrong, my overall goal is to be 100% processed food free, I just don't think my whole family isn't able or willing to make that jump just yet. I am working on it though! :)

Eating more Vegetables and Fruits
This shouldn't be too hard for my husband and me, but it might take some ol' fashion trickery to get my kids on this bandwagon.

86 the fried foods
This isn't a big deal for me, but my husband is going to struggle with this one. As the saying goes there's more than one way to skin a cat, I too hope to find alternative methods for cooking that doesn't include frying.

No Fast-food Pretty simply stated. I am not a big fast food eater so this should be fine with me; the hubby and kids might have some issues with this one as well.

100% Whole Wheat and Whole Grain I plan to experiment with a variety of grains to find which ones we like best~!

Natural Sweeteners My hopes are to cut out refined sugar and stick to sweeteners like Agave Nectar and whole sugar!

Reducing "sugary" pops, juices, and drinks Instead we will drink lots of Water, Milk, 100% Juice, Tea, and wine (for me!).

So here is a website I used to help formulate my changes list- http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/real-food-defined-a-k-a-the-rules/