Road Food

We are heading out to the mountains in New England for a week long vacation with family tomorrow. I scouted out some snacks from the car. While they don't meet the strict real food guidelines, they are in my comfort zone, which means :
no artificial colors or flavors
no preservatives
no high fructose corn syrup
convenient and easy to eat in the car!

From Left:
Honest Kids Berry Lemonade Pouches (upgrade from Capri Sun)
Homemade gluten free blueberry muffins (recipe to follow, still tweaking it)
Annie's Cheddar Bunnies
Blue Diamond Almond Nut Thins (gluten free crackers)
Market Pantry applesauce ( not the easiest thing to eat in the car but oh well)
Annie's Bunnies Fruit Snacks

Yes, they are fruit snacks. I am not proud. I raised a son who currently loves fruit snacks. I figure they are a step up from Mario fruit snacks.
I told him he could pick one special treat at the Health Food Store, and those were his choice.

We will also be bringing fresh fruit, water and nuts for our 6 hour car ride.

Defining what real food means to me.

There are lots of definitions out there of real food. I am sticking pretty much to the guidelines that can be found here

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/real-food-defined-a-k-a-the-with the exception of the 5 ingredient rule for a few things, one of them being Annie's gluten free macaroni and cheese, a quick organic staple for us.

The first step was to clean out my pantry. I threw out anything that was expired. The next question is, do I throw out the "junk" food or donate it? I don't want to waste food but the thought of giving someone less fortunate junk food to eat makes me feel bad too.

We are on a tight budget as well. We live in a high-cost area and are in professions that do not earn high salaries (hence why we both work.) I have tried to set a grocery budget of $100.00/ week. This was doable when I was couponing, but there do not seem to be many coupon deals for "real foods". Ho hum. I am thinking of trying to bump it up to $125/week if we can cut costs elsewhere, such as dining out.

To the actual food, today's breakfast was scrambled duck eggs(my mom picked up and gave them to me from a local farm) with local dill chive cheese and a local peach. It was delicious. Now I just have to figure out the rest of my meals..

Hello Blog World!

Hi, to anyone who is reading. My name is Kate. I am starting this blog to hold myself accountable for transitioning my family to a whole foods diet and "green" living. Maybe you'd like to follow us along in our journey.
Inspiried by books such as "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan, and "Animal Vegetable Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, I have wanted to transition my family to a healthy real foods diet. I have been an avid blog reader and follower for a while now. My problem is, most blogs I read are dedicated to the stay at home mom. Unfortunately, I work, and my spouse does too, so I do not have the time to make everything from scratch. So can a working mom use some conveniece foods and still have a "real foods" diet? Time will tell.

A little about me:
I work during the day and go to college at night. I am currently a vegetarian.
I have a spouse who also works, and has celiac disease and must eat gluten free.
I have one child who is in preschool and is a fussy eater.
I do not know much about blog design, so maybe in the future it will get fancier.
We live in the Philadelphia area.

This is my journey! Good night to all.
Kate