Brown Bagging It!

Brown Bagging It!

I became interested in the health and wellness industry for a variety of reasons.  The biggest draw for me was the connection between what we eat and how it affects the way we think and feel.  I was always the kid with potential in class, but I often had difficulty focusing. I was bright, but often came up average.  But every school year was a clean slate for me!  “This is going to be my year!”  I would say to myself.

I vividly remember my new binders organized and ready because that was the year I was going to be organized the whole school year; not just the beginning.  Schedules, new fall clothes, and the lunches my mom made. My lunches were everything from an olive loaf sandwich to a leftover meatloaf sandwich that I would eat cold with a touch of ketchup.  Homemade chicken soup, left over stew or spaghetti and meatballs were thermos specials. I was a brown bagger through and through! 

Now as a mother, teacher and holistic health counselor, I look back on my school years and wish I could go back and track my behaviors.  I would love to see if I was more focused on the days I ate homemade stew (meat, egg noodles, carrots, and peas in a tomato sauce) compared to the days that I ate preservatives with a side of preservatives (olive loaf with mayonnaise on Wonder Bread!).

The health and wellness community is starting to understand the connection between eating well-balanced, whole food-based meals and our cognitive function.  Dr. Mark Hyman, author of “The Ultra Mind Solution” writes: “Feeding our brains is not something most of us know how to do.  What you put in your mouth provides all the raw materials to build the structure of your brain cells and keep all the communication systems running well so you can think, emote, learn and remember.  You have to start with the right food and enough of the right nutrients for the brain to function well.”

I think Dr. Hyman and others are on to something.  I have big dreams of sending my ladies on the school bus with cute lunch bags filled with nutritional goodness to “feed their brains.”  Here are some of my ideas:

1.)   Cook once and eat twice.  Turn leftovers into sandwiches.  Meatball sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, pot-roast sandwiches.  Or use a thermos and heat up last night’s primavera and beans or soup.

2.)   Egg salad sandwiches.  Puree carrots and broccoli and add it to the mayonnaise in the sandwich. And chop up celery and you have a serving of vegetables in your egg salad!

3.)   Almond butter, sun butter, or good old fashion peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Please read your labels.  Your butters should not have any sugar added to them and your “jelly” should really be a fruit spread with no sugar additives.

4.)   Hummus, avocado, cucumber, and carrot sandwich.

5.)   Raw vegetables, a piece of fruit, a bag of trail mix, a side of hummus to dip the vegetables and some whole grain crackers.

6.)   Good quality yogurt with granola and trail mix, raw vegetables (if you don’t have raw vegetables on hand, thawed out frozen veggies work just well . . . my girls eat them just the same), and piece of fruit.

   

Get creative and accept help from anyone who is willing to help you prepare good, healthy food!  Review my kale blog for the vegetable soup recipe and ideas for getting leafy greens into your food.  Remember, you don’t have to start your day on a school bus to be a brown baggerJ

Love deeply and eat mindfully,

Kim Gilroy