Healthier eating…for me, too?

As I keep encouraging everyone to eat healthier in our home, I suddenly realized that I need to push myself to eat better too. It’s not that I’m a bad eater, or even a very picky eater, I just don’t have a lot of time to feed myself. I’m embarrassed to admit that most days my breakfast simply consists of three cups of coffee (yes, three!) and a Nutri-Grain® Bar, if I’m lucky.  

So this morning, I decided that after I whipped up something healthy for the kids, I would do the same thing for myself. To keep things organized, I would prepare the kids breakfast first, and then this way I could cook my own breakfast in peace.

I have been trying to get better at preparing “quick” healthy meals for the kids because if I take too long, their interest has come and gone. So this morning, they were getting toast and jam (a household favorite) and a fruit-filled smoothie.

Over the weekend, I had picked up some delicious jam at our local farmers market. The kids were addicted to it and seeing that toast and jam is a household favorite over here, I knew this would be an easy sell.

The harder part would be convincing them to try the fruit-filled smoothie. You see, my kids are old-school; they like their milk, and they like it a lot. But, they just like plain old white milk; nothing fancy. So I made a big production out of pouring some into the blender to show them that milk could be dressed up a bit.

Making the smoothie was really quite simple. I just tossed some frozen peaches, strawberries and bananas into the blender along with a cup of 2% milk, a strawberry Carnation® instant breakfast, and some ice cubes. Within seconds, I had created a yummy, ice cold, smoothie for the kids!

I set them down at the table so they could eat while I got working on my own healthier breakfast. I knew I wanted to eat something hot, so I decided to try an egg white omelet. I wasn’t exactly sure that I would like it, but my husband is a triathlete, so he’s all about the egg whites these days. However, I’m a girl who grew up with her Daddy eating bacon and ketchup on a roll every Sunday morning, so to do without the tastiest part of the egg seemed sacrilege to me.

I knew that my biggest hurdle in eating an egg white omelet would be getting over the “whiteness” of it, so I wanted to make sure it was colorful! First, I cooked up some chopped red onions in olive oil. Then, once the onions had softened a bit, I added in some frozen spinach for color and nutrients. Next, I added a pat of butter for taste, and whisked in some milk to the egg whites. Lastly, I added the whites to the pan and tossed in some cheddar cheese…because I just couldn’t do without some yellow in my omelet!

I must say that the omelet not only looked good, but smelled delicious too! I was getting pretty excited and decided to have some toast and jam with it as well! When I was finally finished, I sat down to the table and dug in!

And, as long as you don’t tell my husband, I’ll admit that my egg white omelet was delicious! I’m not saying that I’m giving up my egg yolks permanently, but on occasion, I now know that I can do without them.

Happy eating!

Denine

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