You see, even as late as a year ago, my fridge looked very different than it does today.
THEN:
My top shelf of my fridge was always for milk, juice, and leftovers. The middle was eggs cheese, cold cuts, tortillas, and sandwich thins. The bottom shelf was bread, croissants, bagels, and any cakes, cookies or other sweets we had in the house.
NOW:
My top shelf contains a filtered water pitcher, milk substitute, anything I'm thawing (right now it's strawberries) and leftovers. The middle shelf is eggs, hummus, tomatoes and feta. The lower shelf is spinach, lettuce, mixed greens, cukes, and onions.
Even my freezer looks different, although right now it's terribly typical of what it usually looks like.
THEN:
Frozen pizza ("for the kids", right?), Taquitos, Hash brown potatoes, mixed peppers and onions, Gortons Fish, a smattering of Lean Cuisine, Trader Joe's Orange Chicken, various frozen chinese foods including pork bao, dumplings, and dim sum.
NOW:
Half the freezer is Lean Cuisine, which isn't normal but they had a HUGE sale and they're easy for Cay to take for lunches at school. The other side is unseasoned chicken breast, natural ground chicken with green chilies, gluten free fish "fry", asparagus, broccoli, peppers (including the ones we picked and prepped from the ranch), green beans, and some MorningStar Farms chicken patties and sausages.
Cupboards have changed a lot, too. There is no longer a shelf for chips and "goodies", although we do have a shelf for snack items and items to raise my glucose levels. It has a box of lentil chips and some lower sugar protein, meal replacement or snack bars... everything on that shelf is about protein and balanced carbs.
The main shelf still carries a lot of soup, mostly Progresso and some organic soups, including that marvelous creamy celery (not cream of celery) I found shortly after my surgery and have been eating ever since. There are also cans of beans: garbanzo, black, and yes, even a few cans of pinto beans in chilies for when I make my chili stews. There's canned reduced salt tomatoes, and there's a lonely can of peaches. There's also some spices: mostly dried chilies of different kinds, some Tandoori spice, solid white tuna in water, and a canister of protein powder.
We also have a cupboard shelf on the other side of the kitchen just for teas and coffees.
What's not in my kitchen? Breads, potatoes, and rice. We will, on occasion, have gluten free rice crackers with cheese (well, mostly Cay will have those, I'll eat the lentil), but other than that, the white carbs we have are either the rice or dumplings in the soups or an occasional rice with oriental foods we buy (now we buy chinese foods with unbreaded meats)
I don't remember the last time I had Taco Doritos... which, with A&W Root Beer, used to be an important part of my "breakfast of champions". This morning I had a spinach and cheese omelette. My idea of "breakfast foods" has changed considerably.
My own fridge is a battleground, because the Greedy Family still insists on a lot of crap. I'm picking my battles and introducing slow changes when it comes to what I buy for them. If not, I'd have been guillotined by now.
ReplyDeleteIt helps that Cay is also health and weight conscious. When Tay is here, it's a little more difficult. Generally we get things that she likes that we don't (Ramen noodles and spaghetti noodles) in order to get her the extra carbs she needs.
ReplyDeleteWhile Cay still sometimes bemoans the lack of "goodies", she is generally happy with what we do keep in the house, both because she likes the flavors and because she's really trying to lose some weight after the winter gain.
I was just thinking today if my grandson comes to live with me, I'd be raising him with very different foods than I raised my kids with, and that I'd have to have some foods around here that I normally wouldn't to meet his dietary needs.