Healthy Mumas Cookbook
by Rebecca Mugridge
Healthy
Mumas Cookbook
Published by Rebecca A Mugridge
Smashwords
edition 2012
(c)RebeccaAMugridge2011
Cover design
(c)RebeccaAMugridge2011
All rights reserved. This publication is
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means, electronic or mechanical without the publisher and authors
expressed written permission. Please contact the author and publisher
should you wish to quote or reproduce any material from within this
book.
While care has been taken to provide healthy recipes and inspiration
the recipes and information in this book are not meant to substitute
a consultation with your health care provider for yourself or anyone
else or be a substitute for expert advice or be considered as a
complete diet plan, they are provided as cooking recipes and ideas
only. Always seek advice from your qualified health care
provider before undertaking any and all dietary changes or
exercises for yourself and your family. The author, publisher and
copyrighter do not accept responsibility for any problems at all said
to arise out of any contents or in any way from this book whatsoever.
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Healthy
Mumas Cookbook
By Rebecca Mugridge
This book is dedicated
to the amazing women who read my first book, The Pram Diet
and who wrote, emailed, myspaced, twittered and facebooked me with
amazing feedback and asked me for more recipes!
Enjoy!
For
more inspiration, motivation, recipes and healthy living ideas check
out my book, The Pram Diet.
The Pram Diet, an inspirational
book for mums!
From effective ways to lose that baby
weight in a healthy, long term way including using what you already
have at your disposal, your pram/stroller! To tasty recipes the whole
family will love, ways to unleash your creative spirit, reduce
stress, boost your self esteem and even grow your own fresh, organic
food at home!
A motivating book sharing Rebecca's own story from
overweight, depressed and feeling flat to losing 30 kilo's in weight
and becoming an empowered, energised version of herself and how every
mother, everywhere can too!
Absconding from fads and quick fixes
this is about embracing your health to lose weight after a baby the
right way and keep it off! All in a heartfelt, supportive book by a
mum for mums.
Available through all good Australian
Bookstores.
ISBN: 9781863256872 Ask for it today!
Visit my
blog http://authorrebeccamugridge.blogspot.com
Find me on FACEBOOK:
www.facebook.com/AuthorRebeccaMugridge
Rebecca
xx
‘You are the ONLY YOU-Cherish yourself. ’
Chapter One-Loving Healthy Food
We all
know we should eat healthy, so why aren’t we? Somewhere along the
line eating healthy often gets the image of being unappealing; be it
because we view it as boring, hard to make, not satisfying, time
consuming to prepare, second fiddle to tasty food or even just too
expensive.
BUT it doesn’t have to be any of those
things.
Not if
you see healthy eating as a love affair with healthy
food.
Healthy food is at the foundation of a
vibrant life.
A vibrant life where we feel empowered.
Where we
feel ownership of this fantastic thing that is our very own
body.
Our best health IS within our own
power to achieve.
It is right there. It is in every choice we
make, every step we take, every fresh new day. We can choose to make
it important or not. We can choose energy. We can choose
vibrancy. We can choose to be strong, powerful, capable, full of love
and appreciation for this gift that is our own body.
This body that not only gives us life and every opportunity but as mothers created life within it! This body that brought our children into this world. What an amazing thing to behold, to have done. This remarkable and beautiful thing that is ours and ours alone.
Love
it. Love your body. Own it.
Respect it. Appreciate it. For it is a
true gift beyond comprehension. It IS beautiful. It IS powerful. It
IS yours!
Chapter Two-Healthy Eating and You.
Healthy
food and exercise are what fuel us in the most fantastic way.
Our
beautiful bodies are meant to jump, run, climb, walk, pull, push,
swim, feel, to be. To do this at their best they need
nourishment.
Nourishment from real, healthy, beautiful food. Food
that gives us energy, clearer skin, better concentration, a stronger
immune system.
One
marvellous thing with eating healthy is the more you do it, the
better you feel and the better you feel the more you want to do what
is making you feel good.
You get a taste of what it feels like to
fuel your body well. You feel that energy, maybe you feel your once
sluggish bowls working again, (yes not a favourite subject with many
of us, but a very important part of a healthy body). You feel your
body absorbing nutrients. You notice that once you have been cutting
back that processed food and the salt and the sugar that food
actually has all these flavours you had somehow been missing.
You
might even feel that maybe your taste buds were only noticing sugar,
salt and artificial flavourings.
That salad actually starts to
taste fresh, crunchy and alive. Those veggies take on a whole new
dimension and often when you do have some of what you ate before you
are shocked at how overly sweet, salty, oily it actually was, leaving
you to wonder what was so good about so many of the unhealthy foods
you overate for so long?
Too
busy to eat healthy?
So many meals can be made a lot faster
and easier than you might at first think. Sometimes we hear ourselves
say, “Life is just too busy right now.” Or “I am doing so much
already I simply cannot take on another thing like eating more
healthy or that dreaded word…dieting” or “I’m really
not that concerned about my health or my weight right now that I
would be motivated enough for dieting.”
Which leads to
another very important point, healthy eating is a much more
empowering thought process than dieting-even if it does often have
the same result of weight loss.
Dieting can have a big stigma,
building up an inner resistance, implying that you need to lose
weight and that is your only focus, maybe even then putting you under
too much pressure and even setting you up for another fail.
The
thought of ‘dieting’ for some might conjure images of going
without, feeling hungry, having long lists of ‘can’t have’
foods, not going out anymore, spending a fortune on supplements,
pills or meal replacements.
It might bring you stress and even
resentment. It might make you start seeing some foods as more
‘exciting’ simply because you cannot have them.
It might make
you feel you cannot socialise, go out for meals, enjoy a birthday
cake.
Embracing healthy eating on the other hand is a term that
often gives you a much nicer visual. Picturing fresh fruits and
vegetables, people with glowing skin, lots of fresh, tasty meals.
It
is often a much nicer approach altogether because it is about
including the right foods and learning new things about food and your
body, not just avoiding some foods, counting every calorie you
consume or consuming ‘meal replacements‘.
It’s about
fuelling your body well and letting it create the healthy, fit, happy
person you can be, letting excess weight come off naturally at a
healthy, steady rate so it will not just come off but stay off
too.
Not putting yourself under stress and pressure to be X
size by X date.
The kind of pressure that can lead to all kinds of
emotional stress and deep disappointment and even depression if you
don’t succeed or worse do but then put it all back on again when
you try live normally again.
Healthy eating is about
empowering your body, forever.
It’s embracing what’s good for
you, what fuels you, gives you energy, makes your body work better,
your hair and skin shine with it.
Healthy
eating is about including nutritious foods not want you can’t
have.. It’s discovering what really fuels you best. Just like a car
getting a service or a house getting a really good clean; spring
cleaning our bodies and providing good nutrition is essential for a
happy, healthy life.
Our bodies deserve and need our attention to
function well and stay in good working order. We need to care for
them, nurture them, and put the good stuff in to get more miles
from them.
Just like you wouldn’t expect the tomatoes in
your veggie garden to grow well and produce lots of great, tasty
fruit without the right combinations of fertiliser, sun, water and
healthy soil-you like wise can’t expect your body to put up with
years of bad nutrition and lack of exercise and expect it to be
functioning and looking at its best.
So many health problems
can be reduced and even prevented by embracing a more wholesome
lifestyle and eating healthy food. Some studies show as much as 40%
of health issues can result directly from your diet!
Healthy
eating fires your metabolism and immune system, gets your bowls and
digestive system working at an efficient capacity, and you know it’s
doing your body good because you FEEL GOOD too.
So many
healthy meals also contain ingredients that a busy mum really needs
to have in their diet because they will actually help a busy mum!
Foods that give you energy. Foods that improve focus and
concentration. Foods that get your body working better in all sorts
of ways, boosting your immune system, helping you to ward of sickness
and giving your fired up energy making you feel fantastic; and what
mum doesn’t want (and need) to feel fantastic?
As mums
we can easily feel there isn’t enough time in a day or feel a real
sense of mother guilt at the thought of letting ourselves be part of
our focus for the day-BUT what we must remember is as mum’s we are
important role models to our children, whether we realise it or not.
Even subconsciously they pick up things from us, and this is great
motivation to make some healthy choices and take control of our
health and eating habits.
If you can’t seem to do it for
yourself-do it for them.
For me
becoming a mother was the biggest source of inspiration to get
healthy I had ever encountered in my life.
From years of yo-yoing
weight since childhood I was always obsessing over food. From eating
too much and being overweight, to eating too little on strings of
crazy fad diets that wrecked my health.
It was an obsession I
wanted to stop with me.
I realised I wanted my daughter to have a
healthy attitude toward food and exercise and I realised the best way
I can ensure this was to lead a healthy, active life myself.
I
wanted to be a strong, positive role model.
I wanted to make sure
I took better care of my health for my daughter. I began to realise
just how important my health was and I wanted to not just be around
for my children and their children, I wanted to be able to really
enjoy them, do things with them, and be active and alert right into
an elderly age.
You
are so important to your family as a mother-so you should be
important to yourself also.
And it doesn’t have to be hard
work either.
Healthy eating when done in a positive light is all
about balance.
It’s about including
all the right ingredients to have our bodies and minds in
optimum shape, but it’s also needs to be about being
realistic.
This is why it’s not only ok but can be important for
some of us to include in a healthy eating plan ‘Sometimes Foods’,
just like Elmo sais to the kids on Sesame street and to have
occasional family meals that might be higher in carbs or calories
than you might think is ok on a healthy eating plan.
It is
ok to have rich or unhealthy foods sometimes and
there are even many recipes of these ‘treat’ foods that with a
few simple adaptations can actually be made to the same taste which
much less calories, sugar or fat!
So what are you
waiting for?
Happy healthy cooking Mumas!
Chapter
Three-Tips
As
the famous saying goes, “From little
things big things grow.”
A small
change here and there can transform us-small steps start big journeys
which is why useful tips can be so great when we have goals, plans or
are undertaking a big change in our lives.
Here
are some of my tips for healthier eating habits.
TIP:
Don’t skip meals. As tempting as it might seem when you
want to drop a few kilo’s, it can cause your metabolism to slow
down ( and who wants that!) and even lead to things like effecting
blood sugar, mood swings and even binge eating.
TIP:
Snack smart. It definitely pays to have a good source of
snacking foods that are healthy or at least low in calories and
fat.
When your cooking have a bowl of cut up snacks on the ready,
for example cooking sweet food have some frozen blueberries, cut up
apple and sultanas by your side. Cooking savoury have some celery and
carrot sticks, pretzels, sunflower seeds and popcorn.
Let’s
face it we all have those times when you just feel like
nibbling! So be prepared for them.
The same can be said for those
nights when it’s been such a long day, you don’t feel well, are a
bit stressed or just plain tired and you want a quick satisfying
meal.
Don’t reach for the car keys and takeaway have some easy
meals planned instead!
Try and have an afternoon once a
fortnight where someone can help you watch your kids and you can pre
make some dinners in advance, think lasagne, quiche, sausage rolls
and then freeze them and then on those nights when you are too
tired/busy/sick/overwhelmed or just plain want a night off! You can
whip one out!
TIP:
Balance take away and indulgences.
Is
there something in particular you find yourself drawn to again and
again? If it’s something not very healthy
that’s still ok. Don’t
give it away all together unless you really want to, instead balance
it out or alter it.
For example: If chocolate is something you
crave a lot (like me) and you know there are times when you will just
have to have some
plan for it, work it in to your day because
it is ok. It’s
all about balance.
The
balancing act.
Eat
a healthy, energising breakfast. Healthy lunch. Go for a power walk,
do some squats, hand weights during your day, maybe even an exercise
class or video at home.
Have an afternoon cuppa and enjoy a piece
of fruit and then a milky way (for your chocolate fix) or make the
fibre boost chocolate muffins in The
Pram Diet book and have one of them!
Have a healthy dinner. Still want more chocolate, have a bowl of low
fat vanilla yogurt with blueberries and grate some good quality dark
chocolate over the top for dessert and an organic hot chocolate
drink. Balance.
Maybe it’s a special chicken
kebab at a local takeaway-so make it a only once a fortnight thing.
Maybe have a lunch with girlfriends and that is your kebab day BUT
make sure you do some sort of good physical activity and drink water
and don’t have added extra’s
like chips, soft drinks, ice cream-just have the thing you really
wanted and balance it out with healthy choices.
Tip:
Love takeaway? Create it.
Pizza? Hot dogs? Sausage rolls? Burgers? Make your own healthier
versions. Still full of flavour but you are controlling the
ingredients and the portion size. Make your own McDonalds burger, buy
mini buns, hollow them out, fill with lots of salad greens, low fat
cheese and a small homemade beef pattie, a vegetarian Sanitarium
pattie or buy a ready-made lean beef pattie from the butcher or
supermarket.
Be in control and happy and healthy.
Tip:
Portion perspective. Have a small portion of the
high calorie/fat part of a meal and then bulk it out with fresh
salads, steamed veggies, veggie mash, soup or even a healthy
vegetarian dish as a side.
Try using
smaller dinner plates and bowls. This is a really simple thing that
can make a big difference quite quickly. It can be easy to overeat
and over serve when using big dishes.
Tip:
Go easy on yourself.
A huge percentage of overeating can be linked to emotional
eating, so if you give yourself a hard time you can make the
situation worse and make you feel awful!
Had a healthy eating blow
out? Don’t beat yourself up about
it.
Move on. Straight away.
It’s
happened. It’s done. It’s
ok.
Focus on your next meal/snack.
Go for a walk, do some extra
exercise. Do not feel guilty, ashamed, weak willed, disappointed,
frustrated. This could lead to writing a whole day or even a week
off!
Tell yourself. It is always
ok!|
Tip: Inspire Yourself.
Inspiration is so powerful. It motivates and moves you with no
effort.
Inspire yourself to healthier eating with delicious
recipes, with great, fresh ingredients, with friends who also love
healthy, beautiful food, with being more in touch with food.
One
of the greatest tips I can share to inspire yourself to cook and eat
more fresh vegetables is to grow some! I can never say enough the
difference this can make to your life and your whole attitude to
food. Plus
it just tastes better when you grew it yourself!
I
have seen young children so enthralled in the experience of growing
food they happily eat raw spring onions straight from the garden, not
just the yummy snow peas, tomatoes and strawberries but anything
edible!
I feel truly blessed to have been able to give my
daughters the experience of home grown foods all their lives. It is
such a beautiful, natural thing and when you see them out there
picking and eating fresh organic food and LOVING it-you glow with
happiness as a parent-no takeaway or lolly can ever match that.
Chapter
Four-fridge and cupboard staples
There
are so many
wonderful ingredients to include in a healthy kitchen.
Shift the
focus from
weight loss to health.
From what you
can’t eat to what you can!
Even on a tight family budget you can source natural ingredients, healthy options and whole foods products and add some staples with each food shop.
Have a good look around your local area source from markets, wholesale suppliers, whole foods store, online and even most supermarkets now carry a much wider range of more natural and healthier ingredients.
Look for natural products, ancient grains, whole grains, heirloom produce, spices, herbs, unprocessed ingredients, and organics. Ask your local whole foods or health food shop for recommendations and ideas! Exciting ingredients to look out for that will add some wonderful health benefits and or flavour to your families cooking can include”
Herbs and spices, fresh and dried. Spice blends and specialties like Dukka and flavor-some rubs and marinades.
Fresh chilli, ginger, garlic. Kaffir lime leaves. Citrus peel, bay leaves. Lemon grass. Different sprouts. Berries fresh and dried.
Quinoa, quinoa flakes. Oats. Bran, bran flakes. Lentils, red lentils, French green lentils, brown lentils. Bean’s like red kidney beans, butter beans, navy beans (navy are used in tinned baked beans) Psyillium husks, sunflowers seeds, peppita seeds, sesame seeds. Dried fruits. Chia seeds.
Whole grain pasta, whole grain spaghetti. Vermicelli rice noodles, glass (bean) noodles, Japanese low carb noodles. Wild rice, whole grain rice, jasmine rice. Spelt lasagne sheets, pea flour lasagne sheets, whole grain lasagne sheets. Spinach spaghetti, handmade pasta’s and spaghettis from organic and wholegrain flour.
Whole meal flour, spelt flour, chick pea flour, soy flour, amaranth flour, rice flour, organic flour’s. Hazelnut meal, almond meal. LSA mix. Organic cacao, raw organic nuts and seeds.
Concentrated apple and pear juice, agave nectar, stevia and organic honey for sweetening baked goods
Balsamic vinegar-assorted vinegars. Healthy oils. Low fat salad dressings. Asian soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, tamarind paste. Tahini paste. Ground nut pastes. Massel stock cubes (no trans fats), home-made stock.
Get
excited about food!
Eat food as back to basics as
possible.
Remember the saying “You are what you eat”
We
simply cannot feed our bodies rubbish, synthetic ingredients and
chemical filled products for year after year and expect no
consequences.
When you have a family you need to really step back
and say what am I feeding my family? What am I feeding myself?
A
trip in to any hospital will reveal so many people who are very ill
and it is often a direct result of lifestyle. Just think on that for
1 minute. Everything your body consumes can either nurture it and
make it strong and full of energy or it can make it weak, broken and
frail.
You don’t have to be a food obsessive but you do need to
include plenty of gorgeous, glowing ingredients.
You don’t need
to count calories obsessively and never eat out, never let your
children go to birthday parties for fear of the food but you do need
beautiful balance in your familys diet.
You love your family
so love what your family eats too. Make food a love you all
share.
Include health and take a positive, balanced view.
Food
should be a blessing we enjoy together not something that is a chore,
something else to stress about it.
Fall in love with real food
and a balanced life and your body and your families bodies will love
you for it.
Vegetarian
alternatives.
You don’t need to be a vegetarian to enjoy
vegetarian food!
Most experts agree that we should
all have 3-4 meat free meals a week.
Looking for meat free
recipe or just a healthy alternative? Or feel like trying something a
little different? Try a meat alternative meal-even just
occasionally like Sanitarium’s Vegie Delights
range and the Quorn ranges found in supermarkets which are
excellent meal bases.
They are great healthy alternatives and
store really well. They are delicious for everyone not just
vegetarians and they are affordable, healthy high protein and low
fat meal ingredients with many of the products also being high in
iron, vitamin B12 and Zinc.
Research shows that majority plant
based diets are the healthiest for humans, there is even some
astounding research (and books) showing that eating a plant based or
mostly plant based diet can reverse some things like heart disease.
It is recommended by many heath care professionals to have at least
3-4 meat free dinners a week so it’s a great idea to learn a
few healthy meat free recipes, plus they can often be cheaper to make
or even make a great side dish.
Buying
fish?
Always try and look for sustainable fish varieties
and support industry that promotes sustainable fishing
practises.
There has been so much damage done to fish stocks,
marine environments and through pollution all over the world BUT the
great news is there is passionate people and business’s doing
amazing things to improve and heal the whole industry.
Look for
the blue MSC label that tells you it’s sustainably
caught.
Most supermarket’s and fish markets now have certified
sustainable produce available.
Fish for the future!
For
more information visit:
http://www.msc.org/
And
for more information and recreational sustainable fishing
visit
http://www.ffc.org.au/
Get
to know great local places to buy fresh produce. Find out about
local fishing spots to catch dinner with the kids. Support industry
that do the right thing and we will have fish for the future.
Buying
Chicken or Eggs?
If you eat chicken you need to jump on
the free range bandwagon.
With chicken buying free
range products supports the movement to more ethical practices.
Many producers are trying to improve and want to do the right thing
but they need support from us the consumers. They can’t compete
with slashed priced cruelty filled mass produced unless we as the
consumers support the changes.
Many farmers now have free range
and caged because they want to change but there is so much pressure
to be as cheap as possible at the expense of these poor birds and the
lives these birds live are just terrible, gut wrenching stuff.
I
urge all chicken and egg eating people to watch Jamie Oliver’s
Fowl Dinners it is very informative and compelling viewing from
such an inspirational chef. He goes inside the industry and shows you
exactly what all the terms mean, shows you from the farmer’s point
of view, everything about it and all with an audience from all sorts
of standpoints on the issue.
You do need to be aware of what
you are eating, where it comes from and if you chose to eat animals
exactly what their life was like prior to arriving on your plate. In
our technology age there is no excuse really for not being well
informed.
All the food we consume should be a conscious
decision and we should take the time to know exactly what we are
eating.
Buying meat?
If you eat meat, take a
look at how, what and how often.
With meat try and buy smaller
portions of better quality/leaner cuts. A smaller piece of a less
fatty cut is a much better option than a bulky, fatty one. Don’t
fill them up with cheap, unhealthy meat-instead bulk out the meal
with vegetables, pulses and then serve a small portion of good
quality, even preferably organic meat. You do get what you pay for
and large quantities of fatty, cheap meat is not good for anybody’s
health.
Don’t forget your local butcher! They often have great
specials and can recommend healthy ways to cook the lines they
have.
Many are even stocking organic meats now too; again your
purchases help to support positive practises. Organic meat means the
farm was organic too and there will be no traces of pesticides,
hormones or other chemical nasties. By buying this you are not just
giving your family less chemicals you are helping a farmer and
reducing chemicals in the area.
Make food an experience. See food as the beautiful thing it is and try new flavours. Shop with thought, explore local farmers markets and produce sellers. Visit Asian grocery stores and specialty food stores.
Try new things...
You
don’t have to go out, spend a fortune and
fill your cupboards full of food you may never use. Just be a bit
adventurous and each food shop, whether it be fortnightly or weekly
or monthly venture into that health food section of the supermarket.
Avoid the inner isles of packaged foods and instead explore the
international section, the fresh food areas, the more wholesome outer
rim.
Take a peek inside a health food store. Have a browse in that
interesting deli or that Asian grocery store, that natural food
store, that local food co-op. Find that local fruit and vegetable
market, fresh seafood place or farm gate produce. Try one fresh herb
or vegetable you haven’t before. Grow some food. Explore, learn and
try as a family and give your children a more balanced, open view of
food.
Always
look for the healthy alternatives and foods in as natural a state as
possible, even if you start small and it’s
just with a few ingredients at first. It’s
a great empowering start.
Try and make some ethical choices too,
think about what you are buying. Look for fair trade, organic and
free range, cruelty free products, support the businesses and farmers
trying to do the right thing. Even if you can’t
afford them all, making just one or two positive purchase can
actually make a huge difference and gives you a warm glow too!
Remember look for tasty, healthy ways of flavouring your meals and always try new vegetables and fruits if you find them!
Enjoy
real, healthy food because real, healthy food is a beautiful thing
indeed and because
Healthy Mumas really do LOVE healthy meals!
And
so do their families!