Sunday, February 17, 2013

Incorporating Healthy Eating, AKA Life Skills, Into Your Homeschool


During the week we have no time to learn life skills. I decided this weekend that had to come to an end. In the fall we were studying chapters from a great book , Vintage Remedies, but for some reason after four chapters we just stopped. This great book has been sitting on the shelf very lonely. Today we read chapter five, "Sweet Desserts!", and prepared one of the recipes. I would like to include some things we learned in this chapter:

Eating desserts every once in a while is okay, just don't make it an every day occurrence. 

Many desserts contain bad ingredients like refined sugar and white flour.

The term "rich" desserts actually came from years ago when the cost of butter, cream, and sugar cost too much money to use on a daily basis. "Rich" desserts were only prepared on special occasions. 


The fifth chapter from Vintage Remedies gave us four recipes to choose from and of course we wanted chocolate, so brownies it is. White sugar was replaced with a sugar/stevia mix, while white flour was replaced with whole wheat flour. Also the sugar mixture was reduced and honey was added for a healthy sweetner. Grace likes to eat her brownies, cookies, etc. warm, so she tasted right out of the oven. She gave a thumbs down. Not sweet enough and a bit dry. Both myself and hubby thought it wasn't too bad. Definitely something I would eat as an afternoon snack.

I hope to continue working us through the Vintage Remedies book over the next couple of months. The next chapter is Local Foods. This chapter has some wonderful field trips recommendations for local farms, etc. If you would like more information take a hop over to Vintage Remedies and check out all the wonderful products they have available.

5 comments:

Nicole said...

My poor kids are now in the midst of my decision that we are changing our eating habits! We are trying to eat low-glycemic foods, eat more fruits and veggies and lean proteins, and getting in the habit of eating everything on our plate (that contains something from each of the food groups .... yes, even veggies!) before seconds of anything can be given. In the book I am reading, it was talking about snacks. The definition of a snack is a "small meal". It asks, "Would you eat cookies for a meal?" Then you shouldn't eat that for a snack, either. Your snacks should be a small version of a healthy meal. Then, eat those sweeter items for dessert at dinner (like some homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, or fruits desserts, etc.) The snack thing really hit home with me. I am using snacks as a time for my kids to get in an extra fruit or lean protein.

LJS said...

We spent most of last year learning about nutrition. This book sounds perfect for us! I am going to check it out now! Thanks for the recommendation.

Leah Courtney said...

We seem to be always on the road to healthier eating but never quite getting there. This book looks like a good one, and I don't know about the taste, but those brownies look really good!

Kelly Rhoades said...

Use unsweetened applesauce for each egg. You'll drop the fat and increase the natural sweetener if you use homemade sauce made from sweet apples like golden delicious.

Unknown said...

I might have to look into getting that recipe book! Sounds good!