What is IN the food you eat? (stop looking at numbers and start reading!)

My mother was kind enough to host my family on vacation (hence my lack of posts of late). I think she honestly was nervous after following my blog with respect to meal planning. You see, I don't recall a time in my life where diet soda was not in the fridge at my parents house and it's been AGES since actual sugar went into their coffee (they use that "other stuff" that honestly scares the crap out of me).

All that said, with 6 dinners LOOMING ahead of me I knew I had some harsh critics, 2 people who are VERY set in their ways, and I was likely just as nervous as my mom. It started with a grocery shopping trip with my mom. My mom has always checked nutrition labels for calories, fat, fiber, etc., but during our trip, we talked a lot about the other important stuff on the label...what's actually IN the food you're eating? Like preservatives, dyes, other chemicals...popular diets teach us to look for those magic numbers..."how many carbs/calories/fat grams are in it?" Ok, does it matter if you're not even eating FOOD anymore???

We did not eat food I prepared every night, though we did work hard at sticking to our eating habits and I anchored the trip with 2 successful dinners that my parents liked. I'm not expecting to change the world here, but I think I made some baby steps!

Shown above: Greek marinaded chicken, greens, and homemade tzatziki on flatbread.