15 painless steps to improve your diet.

To start, I just wanted to write a post on my raging love for mineral-rich bone broth. I like to think it's protected us thus far during the flu season, when others around us are dropping like flies (not to say we won't get it...but at least we've been able to hold it at bay for the time being). And since we've got little chickens like this to take care of..

...it's always best to be in full health.

We've been incorporating bone broth in all sorts of delicious ways these days- making sure to eat lots of soups and stews, on top of just sipping on warm broth as we go about our day (yes, Georgia too). I just can't get over how something so simple can provide our bodies with such incredible, dense amounts of minerals. Just what we need during flu season.

Which then got me thinking how easy it is to take a basic thing we do every day in the kitchen and alter it in the slightest way to make it a home-run (nutritional speaking).

For example:

Many of us cook rice as a side-dish, even multiple times per week. This presents us with two options (or opportunities, rather):
1. Microwavable, white, instant rice cooked in water.
Nutritional value = Poor.
-OR-
2. Organic, brown, rice cooked in bone broth with grass-fed butter.
Nutritional value = Off the charts.

Same idea. But in just changing our product and process slightly one is able to drastically increase the nutrient content of their food. You don't even have to make it! There's real bone broth available on the market now (see sources).

Here's another example:

All of us use sweeteners. The majority of American consumers use white table sugar - a highly refined and processed product with almost no nutritional value, the pitfalls of which are too many to name. Again, we have simple options:
1. Use white-table sugar.
Nutritional value = Horrendous.

-OR-
2. Utilize whole dehydrated cane sugar, raw honey, or maple syrup instead.
Nutritonal value = Much, much, much better.

(By the way, you're welcome for being so scientific about this).

My point is simply this: it doesn't have to be rocket-science to eat well. There are small, quick, easy, and painless choices that can be made. Here's a few:

1. To repeat above, cook all your grains in bone broth instead of water.

2. Utilize a natural sweetener instead of white sugar.

3. Utilize sprouted whole wheat flour instead of white flour.

4. Drink raw milk instead of ultra-pasteurized milk.

5. Eat butter from grass-fed cows instead of conventional butter or margarine (Costco and Sams are both beginning to carry my beloved KerryGold butter! And for a good price!).

6. Drink kombucha, herbal teas, regular teas, water, kefir, or homemade juice instead of soda. For kombucha SCOBY starters, see sources.

7. Eat organic, raw cheese instead of conventional cheese.

8. Shop the local farmers market instead of the local grocery store.

9. Start to make some of your bread products at home, or if you have the financial means, shop for sprouted grain options at the store (see sources).

10. Make oatmeal, cream of wheat, soft-boiled eggs, kefir, yogurt, or granola for breakfast instead of reaching for that boxed breakfast cereal or pop-tart. Most of them can be whipped up in the same amount of time as 'convenience food'.

11. Get rid of your microwave. Heat things up on the stove instead. (Now if only I could convince my Dad to quit reheating his coffee in that danged PLASTIC COFFEE CUP...)

12. Make your own snack bars instead of buying them pre-packaged. It takes all of three minutes.

13. Make your own hot chocolate instead of buying the mix! (What? I have a hot chocolate problem. It's always on my mind.)

14. Buy grass-fed or pastured meats and eat less of them to counterbalance the increased price.

15. Waste not want not. Learn to utilize everything you got! Don't let it go to waste! And if it does, feed it to your worms, baby.

My point is simply this: the tips listed above almost require no additional effort or money. In fact, things like shopping at your local farmers market can actually get you quite the deal.

It doesn't have to be overwhelming or intimidating. Instead of poppin' those instant, frozen, packaged vegetables in the microwave - shop for an inexpensive, organic, fresh option instead. Maybe tonight's side dish is cheap, steamed organic cabbage with a dollop of grass-fed butter instead of expensive, pre-packaged, microwavable broccoli florets.

See what I'm sayin'?

Instead of cooking your rice in water, cook it in bone broth!

Our diets don't have to be perfect. And honestly, who cares if they aren't. But they should help contribute to a healthy life - and they might as well be as full of nutrient-dense goodness as possible.

Small changes can make a big difference.